Research Enterprise Newsletter - June 2009: Grants & Contracts News
2009/2010 (Proposed) Fringe Benefits Rate announced
The proposed VU 2009/2010 Fringe Benefit Rates can be found via the Office of Contract and Grant Accounting website at vanderbilt.edu/ocga/fringebenefit/fringebenefit.htm.
Please note that the non-federal rates are pending internal approval and are subject to change. The federal rates have been negotiated and approved by the government. A copy of the negotiated rate agreement with the government is also available at the OGCA website.
OCGM congratulates departments for on-time submission record
In the last several months there has been an influx of grant applications such as never before seen. Deadlines for submissions were widely disseminated to departments, centers and investigators. Compliance with these deadlines is important for the timely review and processing of these various applications. Because it so greatly improves our work flow and contributes to our ability to have all grants delivered to sponsors by the external deadline, we would like at this time to recognize the following departments, which not only had 100% on-time submissions, but submissions of high quality, requiring very little, if any, revisions for the major electronic deadlines for 2009.
Congratulations to:
- Emergency Medicine
- Knowledge Management
- Med/Dermatology
- Med/Rheumatology
- Surgery/Cardiac Surgery
- Surgery/Liver Transplant
- Surgery/Plastic Surgery
Changes afoot for Biostatistic Core charges
Members of the Department of Biostatistics support more than 150 grants in the School of Medicine—Many at a relatively small percent effort. Staff have had great difficulty in managing and certifying effort on these projects, due to the need to support so many different grants. School of Medicine leadership has recommended that the Department shift many of the biostatistics support charges from the usual percent effort mechanism to a break-even ("non-profit") recharge service center.
The current funding model does not extend financial support to the department for IT and professional costs; such costs are offset in a recharge service center. This new model is in line with 35+ other cores in VUSM. In planning for this change, you should envision a new budget line item for Biostatistics CORE charges. Although it's difficult to determine the cost difference before going live, we will continue to work with your unit to estimate support needed and will provide assistance to you in finalizing your biostatistics budgets. Major reasons for this change are indicated above and, most importantly, a recharge service center will create fluidity in staff assignments and minimize challenges with effort reporting.
Please contact Frank Harrell, Department Chair, if you would like more information.
