GRANTS & CONTRACTS MANAGER

Position Overview:

The Grants & Contracts Manager is responsible for all activities related to the sponsored projects for the Department of Computer Science and related research centers including the Information Security Institute (ISI), the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare (MCEH), and the Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA). The ideal candidate will oversee the pre-award, post-award and closeout activities for a variety of grants/contracts, with varying levels of complexity; oversight and management of non-sponsored funds is also part of this role. This role also manages two current grants and contracts staff as well as a budget specialist. The Manager serves as the first point of contact and resource guide for department faculty and analysts for the planning and development of budgets, for submission with grant packages to various federal agencies, private agencies, foundations and commercial contract proposals. This includes providing instruction on protocol, regulations and guidelines pertinent to the agency/ or university.

Job Scope/Complexity:

This position will provide broad/in-depth guidance on protocols, regulations and guidelines to Principal Investigator (PI) and other scientific/research professionals, both within the University and with other associated research/administrative professionals outside of the University. This position offers guidance and learning support to Grants & Contracts Analysts, Specialists, Coordinators and budget staff within the department. S/he will work closely with faculty and staff on complex awards and submissions; provide ongoing staff training; disseminate information on new regulations and compliance rules; provide quarterly and annual sponsored funding reports as needed to department, center and/or division leadership as required. S/he will act as the final point of contact for the department, center, and/or division with faculty, grants and sponsored research staff.

Types of sponsored awards for which the position is responsible:

This position works independently on a variety of complex level grants/contracts, including those from NIH, NSF, DOD and NASA. These grants, contracts and awards may involve highly detailed budgets, multiple projects, Cores and Sub-awards, Investigator-initiated, Consortium and New Center, Dept. of Defense grants, higher complexity Foundation grants and pharmaceutical company clinical trials. The ideal candidates will also provide direction and assistance to Analysts with details related to Sub-awards from other institutions on their federal pass-through grants. S/he may also work directly with management of non-sponsored funds, including general funds and gifts, on a limited basis.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

• Serve as department/division liaison for Departmental Sponsored Projects Office, Office of Research Administration (ORA) and University Shared Services
• Partner with and act as final point of contact with departmental faculty and/or budgetary staff and JHU Research Administration (JHURA) toward the planning and development of application submissions to various federal offices, private agencies/foundations and commercial companies
• Responsible for departmental pre-review of complex proposals
• Manage process of final grant package presentation and approval with ORA
• Responsible for the timely preparation of proposal budgets for PI Review
• Revise and advise on approved budget changes to awarded grants/contracts
• Manage the sponsored portfolios of various departmental faculty
• Develop and oversee the maintenance of budget monitoring systems for JHU departmental funds Review SAP reports, analyze variances and take appropriate action
• Manage internal sponsored audits and the development of an account reconciliation system for sponsored accounts
• Develop reports for forecasting and trending of expenditures of awards
• Manage the process for delivering the technical and financial reports for private and government sponsors
• Provide on-going guidance, facilitation & expertise to faculty in their grant pursuit efforts by providing analysis of all grant and contract applications
• Ensure compliance in all other areas related to grant and contract management, including sponsoring organization guidelines, internal protocols, accurate protocol information within grant documents, conflicts of interest, etc.
• Maintain ongoing updates and communications related to current grants and contracts, this includes regular auditing and reporting to principal investigators on financial status of grants, contracts and discretionary accounts
• Provide relevant updates and reports to departmental leadership, as needed
• Provide regular reporting to principal investigators on financial status of grants, contracts and discretionary accounts
• Assist with closeout of grants and contracts
• Ensure that related post-award processes are coordinated appropriately by members of the grants & contracts team, including award setup, review, account setup verification, and ensuring that staff is setup appropriately
• Ensure that post-award responsibilities are completed, including budget distribution, account reconciliation, e-form setup, effort reporting, cost transfers, paying invoices and paperwork finalization related to subcontract setup
• Oversee and direct all aspects of complex award management activities and provide oversight to other members of the grants & contracts team, including monitoring and managing accounts, audits, evaluations and reporting
• Provide information and direct assistance required to complete contract and grant closeouts, as needed
• Ensure that all closeouts handled by other members of the grants & contracts team have been handled appropriately
• Ensure compliance in all other areas related to grant and contract management, including compliance registrations, safety and environmental health issues, internal protocols, conflicts of interest, etc.
• Manage the performance and efficiency of other members of the departmental grants and contracts team

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required
• Five years of related experience in sponsored research and/or financial positions, preferably in an academic or medical setting
• Two of those years must include working in a lead or supervisory capacity with extensive supervisory responsibilities or high level, direct involvement in JHU grants and contracts leadership development training projects, serving as a recognized subject matter expert
• Successful completion of the Research Administration Training Program (15 months) is equivalent to two years of relevant experience for this position. If an employee does not successfully complete the program, no additional experience will be applied.
• Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.
  • JHU Equivalency Formula: 30 undergraduate degree credits (semester hours) or 18 graduate degree credits may substitute for one year of experience. Additional related experience may substitute for required education on the same basis. For jobs where equivalency is permitted, up to two years of non-related college course work may be applied towards the total minimum education/experience required for the respective job.

The position interacts with the following clients and offices:

• Faculty, Students, and Staff (provide direction, advise/consult, may lead)
• Department Chair and Center/Institute Directors (provide direction, exchange information, advise/consult)
• Other department finance staff (lead/supervise, provide direction, collaborate)
• Cross divisional collaborators (KSAS, SoM, APL, BSPH, SoE) (collaborate, advise/consult, provide direction)
• Sponsored Shared Services (collaborate, provide direction)
• JHURA (collaborate)
• Accounts Payable Department (collaborate)
• Purchasing Department (collaborate)
• Fixed Assets (collaborate)
• Financial Research Compliance (collaborate)
• Accounts Receivable (collaborate)
• Cash Accounting (collaborate)
• Tax Office (collaborate)
• JH Export controls (collaborate)
• Homewood IRB (collaborate)
• External Vendors and Visitors (provide direction)
• External Sponsors and program managers (collaborate, provide direction)
• Development Office (collaborate)
• Foundation Relations (collaborate)
• JH Tech Ventures (collaborate)

The position is primarily unsupervised and provides guidance and direction for faculty, staff, and students. Work flows to the position by faculty request to submit proposals for funding. Work will also flow from the department administrator. Management of the awards is divided between staff depending on faculty assignment, complexity and expertise, or sometimes existing workload. Accuracy and timeliness are monitored by JHU central finance dashboards, central shared services offices, WSE business office, department administrator, and JHURA. PI interaction also drives the work when changes to effort distribution or projections for future funding periods are needed, for example. This position will supervise other finance staff, overseeing their work product, providing direction and training as needed specific to policies, processes, procedures, reprioritizing workload as well as employee development. This position may also provide guidance on activities such as sponsor requirements or processes to similar positions in other units.

Brief description of the types of sponsored awards for which the position is responsible:
The position is responsible for awards from NSF, NIH, DARPA, DoD, ONR, ARL, ARO, external research labs (i.e. JHUAPL, LANL, CSHL), foundations, industry, and sub-awarded entities. This list is representative of the primary sponsors. It is not all-inclusive. Proposals/awards may require IRBs, NDAs, MOUs, patents, and licensing agreements. The sponsored awards require the submission of reports via several systems including COEUS, TFIMS, Grants.Gov, Fastlane, ERA Commons, and more. Awards vary in funded amounts from $100,000 or smaller to as large as $10 million.

Brief description of the nature and scope of sponsored awards for which the position is responsible:
The awards managed by this position can be small – i.e. single PI, single year awards with a half month of effort. More often they are multi PI, multi-year, multi-entity projects that include faculty, researcher, postdoc, student salary and benefits, as well as travel, subawards, equipment, publication and/or participant support costs. We have awards as large as $10M and as small as $100,000. Some awards require monthly expense reports that are completed by this position.

Brief description of the types of expenses, billing and reporting requirements for which the position is responsible:
Expenses on the awards managed include salary, fringe, fellowships, equipment, supplies, domestic and international travel, participant support, tuition and health insurance, publication costs, asset fabrication, sub-awards, consultants. Billing frequency and mechanisms vary depending on the sponsor. Billing consists of sub-award monitoring and invoice review, milestone billing, utilization of CLINS, LOC and other methods. Awards may require monthly monitoring and reporting on activity and finances by task, phase, month, hours and government fiscal year. These are created and tracked in Excel portfolios and interactive Word documents. Reports also consist of effort, projections, actual expenses to date, conversion of effort to hours.

Special Skills/Knowledge:

• Knowledge of accounting and budgeting theory and practices required
• Thorough knowledge and understanding of The Johns Hopkins University accounting system and related fiscal offices preferred
• Ability to make independent judgments and to act on decisions on a daily basis
• Proven ability to provide leadership, management and training to the sponsored research team
• Ability to work with flexibility on several tasks simultaneously and to meet various concurrent deadlines
• Thorough knowledge of external Federal guidelines/procedures for grants and contracts, including NIH, NSF, DOD and NASA
• Strong communication skills are required as well as tact and discretion
• Maintain strict confidentiality of payroll/personnel and budget information
• Knowledge of Excel, Access and Word
• Knowledge of JHU on-line systems for budgets, purchasing and accounting preferred

Classified Title:Grants & Contracts Manager
Role/Level/Range: ATP/04/PE
Starting Salary Range:Commensurate with Experience
Employee group: Full Time
Schedule: M-F 8:00 - 4:30
Exempt Status: Exempt
Location: 01-MD:Homewood Campus
Department name: 10001488-Department of Computer Science
Personnel area: Whiting School of Engineering

The successful candidate(s) for this position will be subject to a pre-employment background check.

If you are interested in applying for employment with The Johns Hopkins University and require special assistance or accommodation during any part of the pre-employment process, please contact the HR Business Services Office atjhurecruitment@jhu.edu. For TTY users, call via Maryland Relay or dial 711.

The following additional provisions may apply depending on which campus you will work. Your recruiter will advise accordingly.

During the Influenza ("the flu") season, as a condition of employment, The Johns Hopkins Institutions require all employees who provide ongoing services to patients or work in patient care or clinical care areas to have an annual influenza vaccination or possess an approved medical or religious exception. Failure to meet this requirement may result in termination of employment.

The pre-employment physical for positions in clinical areas, laboratories, working with research subjects, or involving community contact requires documentation of immune status against Rubella (German measles), Rubeola (Measles), Mumps, Varicella (chickenpox), Hepatitis B and documentation of having received the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination. This may include documentation of having two (2) MMR vaccines; two (2) Varicella vaccines; or antibody status to these diseases from laboratory testing. Blood tests for immunities to these diseases are ordinarily included in the pre-employment physical exam except for those employees who provide results of blood tests or immunization documentation from their own health care providers. Any vaccinations required for these diseases will be given at no cost in our Occupational Health office.

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