The office of Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance (SPaRC) is the authorized organizational representative for government (federal, state, local) grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements. We also work with individual faculty members to assist in securing research and sponsored program support from colleges and universities, hospitals, foundations, corporations, and other private entities. SPaRC also works closely with the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations who secures and stewards funding for institutional priorities.

SPaRC provides a “full service” shop that supports faculty and staff in both pre- and post-award activities from idea generation through award closeout.

Additional roles and responsibilities for award management activities are summarized below:

As outlined in the Federal or State Grants & Contracts and Cost Transfer webpages, Principal Investigators (PIs) are the primary responsible personnel for 1) monthly reconciliation of project budgets against actual costs, 2) identifying budget overruns, 3) initiating expenditure requests, and 4) initiating cost transfer requests, if needed.

The Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance, in addition to the roles and responsibilities outlined for PIs, is responsible for 1) monitoring expenditures against project budget quarterly–and more frequently as needed–to ensure financial transactions follow the terms of the grant, federal/cost principles, and Bates policies, 2) assisting the PI in resolving budget overruns, 3) approving expenditure requests on Federal and State grants and contracts, and 4) approving and routing Cost Transfer forms to Accounting for secondary approval and processing.

These roles are performed by either the Director or Assistant Director of SPaRC. In addition to the above roles, the Assistant Director prepares all documents for grant-related drawdowns on a quarterly basis and sends the supporting documents to the Assistant Controller for review and approval. The Assistant Controller certifies the drawdown and processes journal entries to post the revenue and indirect costs for that quarter period, which is then secondarily approved by a Senior Accountant.