Office for Research - Subcontracts

How to get a Subcontract

1. PI notifies Grant Coordinator (Sherry Beasley) of intent to submit a proposal that will ultimately be awarded to the PI in the form of a subcontract (if awarded).
2. PI will need to forward the following items to the Grant Coordinator:
   1. RFP (Request for Proposal, a.k.a. guidelines, program announcement, research annoucment1
      detailed budget,
   2. budget justification (a.k.a. budget narrative)2,
   3. scope of work
   4. proposal transmital3,
   5. forms required by the other university (i.e. NIH checklist or Form Page 5),
   6. name, title, and address of person to whom Letter of Support should be addressed,
   7. name of contact person at the other university, and
   8. anything else that the university has requested (i.e., curriculum vitae)
3. Once all materials have been received and approved, the Proposal Transmittal can be signed off on, and a Letter of Support is written for the PI to send to the agency.

1 Some of the important things we use the RFP to verify:

1. indirect cost rate (whether we can use our negotiated rate or whether the agency mandates a different rate)
2. matching/cost sharing requirement (whether the agency requires a match). Please note that the general rule is to only match if it is required by the agency. If matching is not required, any proposed matching will need to be approved by Dr. Bye and is called an "overmatch." The same is true if matching is required but the professor wishes to match more than the required amount. All matching/cost sharing has to be approved by Jane Terrell in Sponsored Research Accounting Services. She can be reached at 644-8653 or jterrell@admin.fsu.edu.
3. CFDA (Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance) number

2 Please provide detailed information on the fringe benefit rates (type of retirement system; type of health insurance, PI FTE)

3 Common mistakes on the proposal transmittal form:

1. Tuition not checked
2. Matching/cost sharing approval (overmatch, commitment letter, etc.)
3. Location of off-campus project not provided on proposal transmittal
4. Human subjects approval, animal subjects approval, etc. not completed

How to let a Subcontract

In an effort to streamline the subcontracting process, provide better protection for FSU and to more efficiently process the increasing numbers of subcontracts being issued under sponsored agreements, the Office of Sponsored Research Services (SRS) has instituted new procedures for the processing of subcontracts.

All new subcontracts will be effectuated with a bilateral agreement issued by SRS. Requisitions will no longer be entered into GREETS purchasing system. In order to issue subcontracts, our office will need the following items (in electronic format if possible):

1. Budget number under which subcontract will be issued and amount of subcontract;
2. Clearly defined and specific scope of work with desired begin and end date;
3. Budget upon which the subcontract is based;
4. Schedule of desired invoices, reports, and deliverables;
5. Sponsored Research Exemption from competitive bid request over $5,000 (if applicable);
6. Cost/price analysis if over $5,500 (used to determine reasonableness of prices);
7. Contact information for subcontractor (administrative and technical contacts, name, address, phone and email).

Due to the technical expertise required to produce an adequate scope of work from a scientific standpoint, it is difficult for the staff of SRS to try to extract a scope of work from the prime award. Therefore a separate, clearly defined scope is needed as listed above.

In the event that you are procuring commercial products to services for that are of a non-artistic or non-creative nature, a requisition will still be entered into GREETS purchasing system and approved by SRS before going to purchasing.

If the procurement is for products or services of artistic or creative value, it is necessary that a bilateral agreement be issued with specific terms and conditions clearly defining ownership of and rights to such products. In this instance, a requisition will not be entered into GREETS and the above referenced documents should be forwarded to SRS for issuance of the bilateral agreement.

In the recent past, purchase orders for all subcontracts were issued along with bilateral agreements. The purchase orders were used to encumber the funds in SAMAS. We have instituted a memo encumbrance system to accomplish this process without the necessity of using GREETS for pure subcontractor agreements. The encumbrance will appear on departmental ledgers as RXXXX where "X" will be an encumbrance/contract number sequentially assigned by SRS.

If you need assistance in making the determination whether your transaction would require use of a GREETS requisition or bilateral agreement, please contact Ms. Juel Kamke, Subcontracts Coordinator at jkamke@mailer.fsu.edu or 644-8654. Likewise if you have any questions regarding the above change in procedures, please contact Greg Thompson at 644-8649 or gthompso@mailer.fsu.edu or Ms. Kamke at the previously listed number or email.