Grants & Contracts Manager

We are seeking aGrants & Contracts Managerthat is responsible for the overall pre-award sponsored research administration of Research Management Services’ (RMS) daily operations. The Grants and Contracts Manager will manage the pre-award (including clinical research) submission activities for their assigned portfolio. This position reports directly to the Associate Director of RMS and is expected to work collaboratively with other Grants and Contracts Managers on the RMS team.

Research Management Services (RMS) supports the pre and post-award administration for sponsored funding across multiple departments within the School of Medicine. RMS strives to provide the highest quality of customer service in sponsored research management to our customers including departments, faculty, key stakeholders and central teams including the Office of Research Administration (ORA), Sponsored Projects Shared Services (SPSS) and the School of Medicine Business Office (SOMBO).

Position Overview Pre-Award

• This position manages activities related to pre-award sponsored project submissions for Research Management Services which currently provides support to the Departments of Surgery, PM&R, Orthopaedic Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine, Biophysics and Physiology. Expansion to include additional departments is planned for FY24. This position oversees a Subawards Specialist who works alongside RMS team members in triaging subaward requests to our subaward office in the Office of Research Administration, which includes processing of outgoing Subawards under federal and non-federal grants/contracts, process fully executed Subawards, and draft subawards under federal grants including no cost extensions and modifications.
  

These responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the preparation and review of grant/contract proposals, the submission of annual progress reports, RPPR’s or technical reporting as dictated by sponsoring agencies, publication and CV management, prior approvals requests, and the development and implementation of systems designed to support the pre-award team to ensure that all management functions are successful completed.

Job Scope/Complexity

• Will provide broad/in-depth guidance on protocols, regulations and guidelines to 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 and Coordinators within RMS. Additionally, develops and implements plans for the overall growth and organizational development goals of Research Management Services by ensuring that all personnel management functions are successfully performed, including recruitment and retention, employee relations, grievances, training orientation, career development and the equitable administration of compensation. The management team in RMS will plan for both current and future needs by identifying, developing and/or recruiting talent and focusing on career growth plans of the direct reports they have assigned. Volume of work and/or assignments will need assessed on a continual basis to ensure workloads are fairly disbursed or strategically modified to ensure quality of work does not suffer as a result. It is critically important that the incumbent manager is strategic in allocating resources to solve issues timely and pivoting resources in real-time to ensure work quality or employee morale do not suffer during busy deadline seasons.
  

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

• Serves as a point of contact and resource guide for over 200+ faculty members 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 and guidance on protocol, regulations and guidelines pertinent to the agency or university.
• Manages staff a staff of ‘pre-award’ grants and contracts analyst positions.
• Train, supervise, and develop Grants & Contracts Coordinator(s), Grants & Contracts Analyst(s) and Sr. Grants & Contracts Analyst(s) on effective pre-award support and how to guide faculty for a successful outcome with their planned proposal.
• Reviews faculty funding applications and submissions against internal and external requirements, and collaborates with the Office of Research Administration to support the application submission process for Research Management Services.
• Provide guidance to analysts, division managers/administrators, and faculty regarding the interpretation of applicable contract, grant and cooperative agreement terms and conditions, as well as, other administrative rules, cost principles.
• Collaborates with analysts on pre-award activities and provides guidance on application/contract and progress report preparation and review.
• Collaborates with pre- and post-award team members to support management of faculty biosketches and other support documents.
• Collaborates with Associate Director and leadership to develop and implement secondary tools and systems to support the pre-award team.
• Maintains the faculty meeting tracker to ensure continuity of meetings, meeting attendees and updating scheduling depending on a faculty member’s needs (monthly, bi-monthly but at the minimum, quarterly).
• Maintains the compliance of pre-award policies and standards established in RMS and updates policy changes as needed.
• Helps develop monthly or ad-hoc meeting agendas with the pre and post analyst assigned to each department to keep departmental leadership informed of any current issues, successful outcomes and/or pertinent information that impacts the department.
• Partner with the Associate Director on staff meeting agendas and/or planning of staff development activities. Assists with daily communications by informing team of any current events or pertinent details related to sponsored research management (ORA updates, OMB updates, NIH updates, submission form updates etc).
• Meet weekly with each direct report and attend faculty finance meetings when available and/or required. Fill in as needed on daily operations of pre-award management in any division/department due to turn-over, vacations, sick time etc.
• The ability to maintain confidentiality is imperative and a requirement of the position.