July 27, 2017

What SPO Requires: PHS FCOI

Proposals submitted to and awards funded by Public Health Service (PHS) sponsors (and sponsors that have adopted PHS financial conflict of interest (FCOI) regulations) must follow specific campus procedures to ensure UC Berkeley conforms to the PHS FCOI requirements.

Due to improvements brought about by the campus’ End-to-End (E2E) review of research administration services, these campus requirements recently have been streamlined, and the PHS FCOI Guide for CSS/Department Research Administrators and Principal Investigators on the SPO website has been updated to reflect these improvements.

Notable changes include:
  • Elimination of the need to submit a Form 5 for each subrecipient investigator at the proposal stage. Required information is now supplied by the subrecipient’s authorized official via the current Subrecipient Commitment Form.
  • Retirement of the PI Certification Form at the proposal stage and throughout the life of the award. The information on the PI Certification Form is now included in the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator Certification provided on the PI and Co-PI approval screen in Phoebe Proposal Development.
Please note: Each time a PI/Co-PI approve a proposal in Phoebe that is being submitted to a PHS sponsor or a sponsor that has adopted PHS FCOI requirements, the PI and Co-PI are certifying and agreeing to the following:
  • All required PHS Financial Disclosures have been submitted to the Sponsored Projects Office (SPO).
  • I will submit a PHS disclosure form for all existing investigators annually and for any new UC Berkeley investigator I add to this project in the future before the investigator joins the project.
  • I will not use project funds to support any UC Berkeley investigator who makes a positive disclosure until the UC Berkeley Conflict of Interest (COI) Committee reviews and approves this disclosure.
  • I will not allow any UC Berkeley investigator to participate in this project until the investigator provides me with a certificate of completion of PHS-compliant training dated within the last four years.
  • I will maintain a file containing up to date certificates of PHS-compliant training for all UC Berkeley investigators for as long as each investigator is involved in the project and to make this information available to the UC Berkeley’s COI Coordinator upon request. PIs and Co-PIs always should make sure that have provided all required disclosures to SPO and that they understand these requirements before approving the proposal.

July 20, 2017

Reminder: Use of ASSIST for NIH Applications Required Now

Earlier this year, the Sponsored Projects Office and Campus Shared Services Research Administration agreed that all National Institutes of Health applications due after July 1, 2017 would be submitted using the NIH Application Submission System and Interface for Submission Tracking (ASSIST) instead of the Grants.gov system.

ASSIST allows for the identification of errors that could undermine the success of the application before submission to SPO.

This is a reminder that all NIH applications developed by Berkeley principal investigators now must be processed via ASSIST not Grants.gov.

Note: NIH proposals already in process as a Grants.gov application do not need to be modified.  However, after August 1, 2017, SPO will not accept any NIH application that was not processed using ASSIST.

July 11, 2017

Subrecipient Commitment Form for FDP Institutions

UC Berkeley is participating in a pilot program established by the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) to test the efficacy and efficiency of using online organization profiles in lieu of subrecipient commitment forms to obtain information needed by pass-through entities when they are issuing subawards.

As a participant in this pilot program, UC Berkeley has agreed to use a modified subrecipient commitment form for subrecipients that are also participating in the FDP pilot.

To find out if a potential subrecipient is participating in the FDP pilot, Research Administrators should consult the master list of Participating Organizations on the FDP website and search for a specific institution.

Please note: Cohort 3 listed below has just been added to the list of participating institutions in the FDP pilot. Research Administrators still may submit the standard Subrecipient Commitment Form for any Cohort 3 institution that is “in progress” during this transition phase.

Cohort 3 (Added to the FDP Pilot July 7, 2017)
  • Ball State University (ERI)
  • Boston University (Charles River Campus)
  • Boston University (Medical Campus)
  • Bucknell University (ERI)
  • Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science (ERI)
  • Florida Atlantic University
  • Georgia Southern University Research and Service Foundation, Inc. (ERI)
  • Governors State University (ERI)
  • Loyola University, Chicago (ERI)
  • Michigan State University
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
  • Saint Louis University
  • Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (ERI)
  • Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES)
  • Texas A&M University
  • Tufts Medical Center, Inc.
  • University of Arizona
  • University of California, San Diego
  • University of California, Santa Cruz
  • University of Connecticut
  • University of New Mexico
  • University of Oklahoma
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of South Florida
  • University of Southern California
  • University of Texas at Arlington
  • University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Houston
  • University of Virginia
  • Virginia Commonwealth University
  • West Virginia University
  • West Virginia University Research Corporation
  • Wright State University

August 18, 2016 Research Advocate: New Process for Some Subrecipients: UCB Participating in FDP Pilot