Summary: Grant (sponsored projects) and fellowship applications submitted through sponsored programs at the University of Missouri with the student as the principal investigator should show the student as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator in the PeopleSoft Grants Module. Students should be made “PI eligible” to reflect accurately their association with and authorship of the fellowship or grant submission.
Background:
- Definitions:
- Grants are one type of sponsored project. Sponsored Projects are activities funded by an entity outside the University of Missouri for a specific purpose, including, but not limited to, research, scholarly, instructional, travel, conference, training, or public service activity. They require approval from MU’s Sponsored Programs Administration before submission (SPA’s sponsored project definition). Before students apply for external funding, they must reach out to their divisional research administrator(s) to evaluate the opportunity and determine if it is a sponsored program or an individual fellowship. However, for the sake of this guide, we note the key features of a grant, as defined here as follows:
- The sponsor (or sponsor’s submission system) requires the institution to submit the proposal rather than an individual
- The sponsor requires the signature of an authorized organizational representative (i.e., someone signing on behalf of the Curators of the University)
- Sponsor requires agreement to Terms and/or Conditions (Note: this may not be readily apparent at proposal time)
- Sponsor requires a detailed, line-item budget associated with a specific scope of work, for which they expect concrete deliverables over a specified timeline (i.e., regular progress reports, financial reports, etc.)
- Academic Home: For students, this is the academic program they are enrolled in and should determine their shared credit. Students enrolled in interdisciplinary programs (those with multiple academic homes) have an academic home associated with the graduate school under their program.
- Project Home: The project home is the department administering the project. This should follow the department affiliation of the faculty member supervising the student project and not the student’s academic home.
- Shared Credit Department: Shared credit department for the student should follow their academic home, and the faculty supervisor should follow their departmental affiliation.
- Grants are one type of sponsored project. Sponsored Projects are activities funded by an entity outside the University of Missouri for a specific purpose, including, but not limited to, research, scholarly, instructional, travel, conference, training, or public service activity. They require approval from MU’s Sponsored Programs Administration before submission (SPA’s sponsored project definition). Before students apply for external funding, they must reach out to their divisional research administrator(s) to evaluate the opportunity and determine if it is a sponsored program or an individual fellowship. However, for the sake of this guide, we note the key features of a grant, as defined here as follows:
- Need: Doctoral students now track and report progress in MyVita and are expected to seek grants as a part of their professional preparation at MU
- PeopleSoft Grants Module data automatically loads into MyVita. Listing doctoral students internally (even at 0% Shared Credit) will ensure they receive credit for their grant writing efforts.
- Benefits:
- Campus Statistics
- Positive impacts across levels – campus, division, department, faculty, and student
- Departments/divisions evaluated on sponsored activity
- Institutional data is collected at campus and unit levels
- Faculty Supervisors
- Faculty supervisors on grants can use the existing affordances of the grants module to monitor project progress and expenses closely
- Faculty supervisors can build in various levels of additional checks/restrictions as needed to provide support, oversight, and monitoring of student grant activity
- Students
- Learn fiscal responsibility for managing a grant under the guidance of their faculty supervisor
- When a grant is issued to the Curators of the University, the student is not responsible for paying taxes on it as “income”
- Students benefit from the tax-exempt status of the university when purchasing supplies and services
- Student has access to potential MU-affiliated discounts on supplies and services
- Student has access via their supervisor to MU-affiliated resources and support associated with grant management (administrative, financial, legal, etc.)
- Campus Statistics
Internal Roles & Responsibilities:
In general, there are three approaches to internal roles and responsibilities:
NOTE: Please consider fiscal implications, and speak with your fiscal officer or departmental post-award professional about which scenario suits your internal practices best (i.e., it may be best to have the student as the Co-PI internally for post-award management regardless of their status with the sponsor).
Approach 1: Student as PI internally and externally
- In some Schools or Colleges, the practice is to make the student the PI if they are the PI on the submission to the sponsor. This creates a consistency in communication and data between MU and the sponsor and is encouraged as a best practice. In such cases, the faculty supervisor should support this decision and the student as PI. Specifically, the supervisor should prepare the student for the following tasks:
- Be the point of contact for pre-award and post-award support teams at all levels
- Actively engage in the grant writing process and write the entire project narrative with minimal input/revisions from the faculty supervisor
- Understanding of both financial and compliance management associated with the project
Approach 2: Student as Co-PI internally and PI externally
- Faculty Supervisor as internal PI:
- All doctoral students wishing to submit a grant should name a single faculty mentor as the supervisor on the grant
- This faculty supervisor should serve as the PI of record in PeopleSoft and be responsible for assisting the student with the following:
- Be the point of contact for MU pre-award and post-award support teams at all levels
- Carefully review and support the student in the grant writing process
- Teach the student the financial and compliance management issues associated with the project after it is awarded
- Doctoral Student as internal Co-PI:
- Even when a sponsor specifically states in the funding opportunity that a graduate student is the lead/PI, make the project supervisor (or primary mentor) the internal PI with ultimate responsibility for the items noted above and assign a Co-PI role to the student
- The doctoral Student must be listed in both the Resources Panel (as Co-PI) and the Shared Credit Panel under their unique employee ID
Approach 3: Student as Co-PI internally and externally
- Approach 3 should be used primarily when the sponsor necessitates this approach. For example, when submitting an NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant proposal, the sponsor states that the faculty mentor should be the PI and the student investigator should be the Co-PI.
- Note: Students can be Co-PIs on any proposal, but not necessarily all of these are “graduate student proposals” and need not be counted as such. If the proposal exclusively represents the student’s work, then the PeopleSoft checklist question should be marked as “yes.” If the student is a “regular” Co-PI on the proposal per the faculty PI, then the proposal should not be marked as a graduate student submission.
- Faculty Supervisor as PI (sponsor required):
- The faculty mentor PI internally should match the external faculty mentor PI
- This faculty supervisor should serve as the PI of record in PeopleSoft and be responsible for assisting the student with the following:
- Be the point of contact for MU pre-award and post-award support teams at all levels
- Carefully review and support the student in the grant writing process
- Teach the student the financial and compliance management issues associated with the project after it is awarded
- Doctoral Student as internal Co-PI:
- The doctoral student must be listed in both the Resources Panel (as Co-PI) and the Shared Credit Panel under their unique employee ID
Shared Credit and Project Home Considerations:
- A faculty supervisor and the graduate student must be listed on the Resources and Shared Credit Panels in the PeopleSoft Grants module, with some level of Shared Credit, and must approve the PSRS.
- Note: A Faculty Supervisor does not need to be the student’s primary faculty advisor and does not need to be in the student’s home department. The faculty supervisor should agree to mentor the student through the grant writing and administration process. Therefore, the academic home and shared credit for the faculty supervisor on the project ought to align with the faculty supervisor’s home.
- The home department and administration of the project should follow the student’s affiliation when the student is the internal PI and the faculty mentor’s affiliation when the faculty mentor is the internal PI. The shared credit for the student should be determined by the student’s academic home (enrollment) regardless of their faculty mentor’s academic home.
- For example, a student pursuing a degree in Biological Sciences may have a faculty supervisor on a project who is in Plant Science & Technology. In that case, if the student will serve as the internal PI, the project home department is Biological Sciences – following the student’s affiliation, the faculty mentor’s shared credit will appear as Plant Science & Technology. Alternatively, if the faculty mentor will serve as the internal PI, the project home department is Plant Science & Technology – following the faculty mentor’s affiliation, the student’s shared credit will appear as Plant Science & Technology.
- Exception: Interdisciplinary graduate programs are housed in the Graduate School, and students enroll directly. In essence, the interdisciplinary program is the academic home of the student. If the student is in an interdisciplinary program (e.g., Neuroscience, Genetics Area Program), the interdisciplinary program (as their academic home) shall be listed as shared credit location for the student’s portion.
Financial Concerns:
- Applying for and receiving grant funds should be beneficial to the student and their research program, therefore:
- We encourage consideration of waivers of indirect cost using the established SPA process if the sponsor offers limited funding – the purpose of such waivers is to maximize the benefit of the grant to the student’s research endeavor
- We encourage consideration of official college or department support for student research. For example, many fellowship programs offer students a generous stipend but limited funding for direct research activities, including the cost of medical insurance. We encourage all programs to make the student’s project whole by contributing direct costs for travel, supplies, etc., equal to the amount of medical insurance. Note, the Provost’s Scholars Program offers similar support for scholars whose fellowship is insufficient to cover educational expenses.
PeopleSoft Checklist Question:
- As of 10/14/2022, there is a new question on the PeopleSoft Checklist, which will appear on Proposal Signature Routing Sheets.
- The question asks, “Is this a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow submission?”
- Division research administrators ought to indicate “yes” for all graduate students’ submissions regardless of whether the school or college chose approach 1 or approach 2, as listed above. They should also select “graduate student” from the drop-down that appears.
- Students can be Co-PIs on any proposal, but not necessarily all of these are “graduate student proposals” and need not be counted. If the proposal exclusively represents the student’s work, then the PeopleSoft checklist question should be marked as “yes.” If the student is a “regular” Co-PI on the proposal per the faculty PI, then the proposal should not be marked as a graduate student submission.
Other Technical Considerations:
- In the instance that a student does not have an employee ID, they ought to have a courtesy appointment within their division. It is at the discretion of their home academic division how and when this courtesy appointment should be executed.
- In the instance that a student’s faculty supervisor leaves the University, the student and their grant may either follow the supervisor to their new institution or select a new faculty supervisor who must agree to serve as the internal PI and supervisor on this project. Resolutions of such matters should always comply with the award terms and conditions.