Administrative Budget

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MBRS SCORE ADMINISTRATION BUDGET JUSTIFICATION PERSONNEL Program Director: The MBRS SCORE Program Director, Dr. Maureen C. Whalen, will continue to dedicate 20% time and effort during the academic year to the administration of the MBRS SCORE program at SFSU. The Program Director will implement and coordinate the program and will monitor the activities of the Assistant Program Director and the Principal Investigators in implementing their subprojects and pilot projects, as well as supervise the Program Assistants and oversee the activities of the SCORE administrative office. If all of the projects in this supplemental application are funded, our SCORE program will include a total of 20 subprojects and 5 pilot projects. The program directly involves four different departments within the College of Science and Engineering, and the involvement of these four distinct departmental structures contributes to the complexity of the administrative function. As the program has grown and the numbers of investigators and their needs for individualized mentoring and administrative support have increased, the responsibilities of the Program Director have grown proportionally. We are again requesting funds from MBRS SCORE to cover 20% of the Program Director's time during the academic year and one month of summer salary each year to allow her to continue to spend approximately 2 days per week during the academic year and summer on SCORE administration duties due to the demands of our large, complex portfolio of individual projects. The PD not only runs her own research program, but still teaches one class per semester in the Biology curricula. Program Director Whalen will continue to be responsible for the administration of SFSU's SCORE Program, in consultation with the SCORE Advisory Committee, and with help from the Assistant Program Director (see details below). The SFSU SCORE program will encompass a total of up to 25 projects directed by faculty investigators all of whom require ongoing support in order to continue to develop their research programs to full capacity. Dr. Whalen will manage the program at SFSU in accordance with MBRS SCORE and SFSU policies. Specifically, she will; (1) serve as the principal contact with NIH-MBRS SCORE administrators; (2) convene SCORE Advisory Committee meetings; (3) coordinate and head the SCORE office, overseeing the two Program Assistants and their day-to-day activities; (4) act as the liaison between the SCORE program accounts (25 PI and 1 administrative) and the SFSU purchasing, accounting and sponsored research departments, ensuring that all relevant institutional policies and procedures are followed correctly; (5) monitor program expenditures for the administrative program; (6) write the annual progress report; (7) coordinate data collection activities of the SCORE office; (8) negotiate, coordinate and review the program evaluation; (9) review progress reports and ESAC critiques/reviews of individual Pi's SCORE research programs and, in concert with the Assistant Program Director, summarize and develop an action plan in response to the reviews; (10) support SCORE Pis directly by resolving all budgetary, personnel or administrative issues that arise as well as to provide advice and encouragement on their research projects; (11) monitor research productivity of all SCORE Pis; (12) resolve all non-routine, higher level issues that arise for all Pis; (13) recruit and assess potential new SCORE faculty for competitive continuation applications and supplemental applications; (14) coordinate and oversee the selection of SCORE Pis for all applications by a pre-proposal review process; (15) submit the SCORE competitive renewal and supplemental applications and write the overall program section with help from the research office; (16) ensure that individual Pis develop high quality, competitive proposals; and (17) ensure that SCORE Pis receive the necessary support for preparation and submission of competitive RO1 applications. Assistant Program Director: The Assistant Program Director, Dr. Scott Gronert, will continue to dedicate 10% time during the academic year to assisting with the administration of the MBRS SCORE program at SFSU. We request funds for 10% time during the academic year. The Assistant SCORE Program Director, will continue to: (1) assist in providing oversight, advice and encouragement to the Pi's on their research projects; (2) monitor research productivity of SCORE Pis as evidenced by quantity and quality of peer-reviewed publications and presentations at national meetings from the two progress reports per year; (3) organize annual research presentation sessions and the professional development workshops; (4) ensure that all Pis invite their ESAC member and schedule them for departmental seminars on an annual basis; (5) collect the formal PI program review written by the ESAC member; (6) work with individual Pis to develop an action plan in response to ESAC critiques; (7) work with Dr. Whalen to develop an overall plan for infrastructure improvement based on ESAC review; (8) support and monitor recruitment of underrepresented minority students in Pi's programs; and (8) identify additional sources of support for the program and play a major role in applying for additional sources of funding to support the research infrastructure for SCORE program Pis. Funds were awarded for this position beginning with our 2005 supplement, in recognition of the demands of managing a program of this size and complexity by faculty who are themselves also engaged in maintaining their own active programs of research. The carefully planned division of labor between the Director and Assistant Director positions, as described above, has contributed substantially to the overall success of the program since that time. In particular, the background, training, and experience of the PD and Assistant PD as a biologist and chemist, respectively, allow each of them to offer discipline-specific mentoring to our Pis, further increasing the effectiveness of the overall program. The Assistant PD's experience as a computational chemist positions him ideally to mentor the new investigators we are bringing into the program from the departments of Mathematics and Computer Science with this application for competitive renewal, Program Assistants (2.5): Based on our experience administrating the current program with 26 Pis, we know that a SCORE program of the size and complexity we have proposed requires a staff of 2.5 FTE Program Assistants. Our highly efficient administrative structure has evolved over time to meet the specific needs of faculty engaged in biomedical research at SFSU. Through the services of our program assistants, we are able to enhance and support faculty productivity by providing our SCORE investigators with access to well trained, highly efficient administrative and accounting support staff who are knowledgeable about and skilled in dealing with the complexities of accounting and purchasing procedures on our campus. Our staff capably fulfill a variety of routine duties which are necessary to keep the subprojects and pilot projects functioning smoothly and to coordinate the program as a whole. In their absence, such duties would fall directly to each individual PI and to the PD/APD, draining valuable time and energy from a research enterprise already challenged by the teaching workload at a comprehensive public university. Since our overall research infrastructure at SFSU is still in the early stages of development, it is particularly crucial at this point for us to be able to provide our investigators with access to centralized programmatic resources like our program staff in order to help them maintain or launch their research programs successfully and to assist in training their lab personnel about procedures and policies at SFSU. The three positions are as follows: Administrative Assistant (80% time): The responsibilities of the administrative assistant include: contacting vendors and placing orders for equipment and supplies for the administrative core and all subproject and pilot projects; processing appropriate paperwork for such orders; following up on purchasing and delivery activities to ensure receipt of the correct items by each investigator's laboratory; working with vendors to address and resolve any problems associated with purchases; arranging returns, repairs and replacements as necessary; overseeing investigator and ESAC travel expenditures; processing honoraria and travel related claims for ESAC committee members; and scheduling and assisting with the preparation for MBRS PI and Advisory committee meetings. Accounting Technician (100% time): The accounting technician is responsible for administering the fiscal aspects of the program and all of its components, including the subprojects and pilot projects. This involves: tracking all program and project expenditures; monitoring the budget for the administrative core and for each of the (20) subprojects and (5) pilot projects on an ongoing basis; reconciling all actual expenditures with information provided by the SFSU accounting office; providing the PD and all the active SCORE Pis with regular updates on the current status of their accounts; meeting with university accounting staff as necessary to troubleshoot problems and reconcile discrepancies; and producing written balance reports at regular intervals throughout the year. The accounting technician keeps the Pis informed of the status of their expenditures and works with the PD to encourage Pis to implement reasonable, well-planned spending practices to keep their labs running smoothly and to expend their grant funds productively in accordance with the details of their approved budgets and their proposed timelines. Data Technician (62.5% time): The data technician collects, organizes, tracks, reports upon, archives and disseminates program support information including detailed information about investigator publications, presentations, grant applications, awards, and other measures of productivity. Critical elements of these data (such as publication status) change over time and require ongoing follow up in order to ensure that they are current and accurate. The data technician is also responsible for: interfacing with our external evaluators from the PRI to ensure their prompt access to all the materials they need to conduct their analyses; assisting the Program Director in compiling the information necessary for the development and preparation of progress reports; and maintaining our program website and online data systems in order to maximize the efficiency of our communication with the Pis. We are requesting funding for 2.5 FTE program assistant positions as described above in order to provide our SCORE scientists with essential services to keep their programs running smoothly and to allow them to focus on research.