r/ResearchAdmin

I have a PI who wants to reduce about 10% of his partner budgets (18 subs) to cover digital twin software and a full time postdoc for 5 years.

I've never seen a PI push for an unsolicited budget modification during the negotiations process. The PM seems to be okay with it, but hasn't given us a timeframe. I've tried talking him out of it and he's insistent.

And the fun part - this is a large DOE (I think it's ARPA-E) with 1:1 cost match requirement. We're going to need 19 new cost share letters. I think it will take at least a couple weeks if everything goes well, and I'm worried any delays here could tank the whole project.

Any suggestions on strategy? Is this as bad of an idea as I think it is?

I am new to the field and the office (pre-award). Other than the online intake form of the proposal request, the office solely relies on emailing back and forth to get documents and information from PIs, as well as store documents in a shared drive. Do you guys have any record management system that can properly record emails, notes, allow PIs to provide documents, store the proposals. I can see the downside of emailing (1) things can easily get lost when handling a large volume of work (2) what if someone is unexpectedly out for extended period, others cannot easily pick up work to continue (3) no where to properly record what has been communicated if something happened. Because I am so new, I don’t even feel I am qualified to suggest anything. But this primarily replying email to prepare proposals has really made me wonder.

I honestly thought research admin was gonna be mostly policies, compliance stuff, maybe budgets here and there.

Did not realize how much of the job is basically chasing people all day.

Missing signatures. Forms half done. Someone forgets an attachment. Nobody answers emails until suddenly the deadline is tomorrow and now it is everybody’s emergency.

Some weeks it feels like the actual admin part is easier than trying to keep everything moving at the same time without something quietly falling apart.

Maybe it is just my experience though.

For NIH first no-cost extensions on a non-SNAP award:

The current project end date is 08/31/2026, so I understand the eRA Commons NCE button likely will not appear until within the 90-day window before the end date.

My question is about the RPPR timing/workflow.

Would we still receive the NIH RPPR notification email and need to submit the RPPR on 07/01/2026 while waiting for the NCE option to appear in Commons?

If anyone has experience with a similar situation for a non-SNAP award, I would appreciate any insight on how NIH handled the RPPR vs first NCE timing.

For an NIH R&R budget, our institution’s negotiated F&A rate changes mid-budget period, we used separate IDC lines in the detailed R&R budget calculation.
My question is specifically about the checklist section.

R&R budget for Year 1:
MTDC 04/01/2027–06/30/2027 at 50% = $3,000 base
IDC=$3,000 x 50%=$1,500

MTDC 07/01/2027–03/31/2028 at 51% = $9,000 base
IDC=$9,000 x 51%=$$4,590

Total IDC for Year 1=$6,090

Checklist for Year 1: (is this correct?)
Year 1 MTDC base: $12,000
F&A rate: 50.75%

Then Years 2–5 would use the standard 51% negotiated rate.

I asked an investigator to remove errors from their other support and they returned a corrected version. I went to search for the corrected errors (by sponsor name) but the document is not searchable. Adobe says to run OCR on it. The document is SciENcv generated but I'm wondering if it was printed to PDF in a way that flattened it.

Should I send it back and requested an unflattened copy? will the flattened copy cause problems in an RPPR or new submission?

(I hate other support)

Thanks!

For an NIH R&R budget, if our institution’s negotiated F&A rate changes mid-project period, is it acceptable to add an additional line under indirect costs section in R&R budget within the same budget period to reflect the different effective rates?

For example:
- MTDC from 04/01/2027–06/30/2027 use 50%
- MTDC from 07/01/2027–03/31/2028 use 51%

An application was previously submitted under an R01 PAR that was “Clinical Trial Required” and was not funded. The PI is now planning to submit a revised version under a different PAR that is “Clinical Trial Not Allowed.

Would this generally be considered a resubmission (A1) or a new application (A0)?

Hi all, do you know if the RPPR needs to be submitted by 5:00 PM local time, or is it due by end of day? I could not find a clear NIH policy on the submission time. Thanks!

I've been in research administration in a department at a R1 University for 6.5 years. In that time the department has doubled the number of faculty and quadrupled our portfolio. I have also transitioned from solely pre-award to full life cycle and obtained my CRA. I'm still happy in my role, am amazed at the opportunities to still learn and grow 6.5 years in, and with 2 small children enjoy my current work life balance. I can see myself in this role for another 4 years at least but have started to think about long term plans for my career.

For those who have progressed up the chain to manager and director roles what has best prepared you to get those next level roles? And has moving out of a department and into a centralized role been worth it?

I really enjoy working directly with faculty and also pre-award, especially contract negotiation. Which has led me to consider obtaining a JD. However I have also seen people get MBAs, or become licensed CPAs. I realize this career doesn't really have defined paths but I am wondering what I can do now to set myself up for these higher level roles.

Let’s get a sense of what everyone does, beyond proposal submission.

View Poll

How many grants do you manage? Are they mostly R01’s? I was speaking to someone else in another department and she manages about 100 R01s. All R01s. I am just curious about you guys! Personally, I have about 50 grants about half are R01s. And the other ones range from U awards to P awards to all types of Rs, some Ws, and a couple Fs.

Hi everyone, for NIH proposals there is somewhat confusing guidance on if the resource plan is required. It’s clear that the DMSP is required and it’s nice that they have made it easier for PIs with the new template, however it’s not very clear if the resource plan is also needed/required. The guidelines almost suggest only if you are developing model organisms unless this is just additional guidance and not necessary the criterion. What is the guidance you provide to your faculty? Thanks in advance!

I am a grants manager in my department. My epidemiologists use AI such as perplexity and that use is valuable for their research. I have no problem with that. It is my lab staff that came to me after the PI told her that she can get reimbursed for months of Chatgpt and charge it to her R01. I dont believe that this is appropriate. I have not been sent the details of her subsciption but I especially do not think it is appropriate if the email is not our institutions email. There is absolutely no way to distingquish whether her use is personal.

Thoughts?

With the old NIH Biosketch format, we could highlight ongoing and completed projects in the Personal Statement section to demonstrate relevant experience.

With the new NIH Common Forms Biosketch format, am I understanding correctly that we should no longer include or spotlight ongoing/completed projects the same way under Personal Statement.

Does anybody have an official NIH guidance link regarding this that I can share with my PI?

Has anyone run into this issue with NIH RPPR/HSS?

I updated the Clinical Trial Milestone dates/numbers in the Human Subjects section, and the changes show as updated in HSS. I also marked the HSS record as “Ready for Submission.”

However, when I go back to the RPPR and click “Generate RPPR,” it’s still pulling the old numbers under Human Subjects.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is there usually a delay issue, or is there another step required before the RPPR updates?

Help appreciated!

It’s been a long day. I’ve seen people describe RA as a glorified administrative assistant or even a “peon profession,” and honestly, some days the job really does feel that way. Do you agree?

A team I work with put together a dashboard that pulls public data from PubMed, RePORTER for any NIH grant number and highlights potential issues (PMCID, embargo, foreign affiliations) in one place.

This was built in response to emerging requirements for FY2025-2026 around tracking PMCIDs, embargo dates, and foreign components. Genuinely curious if this kind of thing is useful — or if everyone already has this covered with internal scripts/spreadsheets.

If anyone wants to try it on their own award and share what it gets wrong or what’s missing, here’s the link: https://pubs.piestar.com/g/[awardnumber]

My team has an opening on the pre-award side for a research administrator. Many of us work in various parts of the country but about half the team is based in Michigan. The job opening title is for the entry level but you'd get a title/salary based on the years of experience you walk in with. We primarily develop and negotiate industry-sponsored clinical trial budgets for our academic site.

https://careers.umich.edu/job_detail/277303/research-administration-associate