Proposals and Award Acceptance

At UCSF, Principal Investigators and department research administrators work with the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) on pre-award activities from proposal development and submission through award negotiation and acceptance. OSR negotiates award terms on behalf of UCSF and the Regents of the University of California. 

Once an award has been accepted, Principal Investigators and department research administrators work both with Contracts and Grants Accounting (CGA) to conduct all financial post-award activities, and with OSR for non-financial (reporting, contract changes, no cost extensions, etc.) post-award activities.

The "hand-off" of an executed award occurs when OSR staff enter the award information into the Centralized Agreement Contact Tracking and Approval System (CACTAS) and send the award to CGA via CACTAS for set-up.

Advances

Requesting Advances on Existing Awards

At the department's request, CGA will establish an advance (in RAS) for a continuation or supplemental year on a current award.

Please review the Automatic Award Advance Procedures for more information.

Requesting Advances on New Awards and Renewals

When a new award or a competitive renewal award has not been fully negotiated at the time of the official start date and work cannot be postponed until the award is fully executed, an award advance should be requested from OSR. Use the Award Advance Request Form to request an award advance from OSR.

Award Advances help to minimize workload and reduce risk by recording financial transactions to an appropriate chartstring on the general ledger during final award negotiation and eliminates the need for cost transfers once the award is executed.

The home department is responsible for covering any unreimbursed expenditures on an advance for which the award cannot be executed.