New to UW Research

Identify Department Support Resources

Your department and school/college will be supporting you in multiple ways; both through mentoring and providing administrative support. Schedule time with your mentor, department chair, and/or dean to discuss your research goals, agenda, and potential funding sources. These questions can help you get started. If you are transferring a research portfolio to the UW, refer to the Transferring Your Research webpage for the most applicable information.

Questions to ask your departmental administrative leadership:

• What college/school resources exist to support my research?
• What is the process for purchasing, travel, budget management?
• What support is available from central units (Office of Research units) vs. the department?
• How do I create my faculty and research webpages?
• Who can help me set up/install equipment in my lab?

Questions to ask your mentor:

• Who should I get to know for collaboration?
• What funding sources for research might exist in my area of interest?

Questions to ask advising staff:

• How can I hire students?
• What guidance/rules/procedures are there for working with students?

Learn About UW Central Resources

Corporate and Foundation Relations (Private Funding Resources)

• Faculty Resources
• Opportunity Dashboard

Clinical Trials

• UW Clinical Trials Office
• ClinicalTrials: Human Subjects Division guidance on clinical trials
• UW Clinical Research Handbook
• Zipline: The UW’s IRB submission system is your portal for viewing and managing all of your IRB applications

Innovations, Startups, and Licensing

• CoMotion: partners with the UW community on innovation, providing tools and resources to transform ideas into economic and societal impact.

Research training–Scholarly and Sponsored

• Financial Conflict of Interest: required for all funded research
• Grants Management for Investigators (GMI): required for all funded research
• Responsible Conduct of Research: strongly recommended for all, required for NSF sponsored research
• Biomedical Research Integrity Program: required for NIH funded research
• Learn about Required Training for your specific research area

Shared Research Infrastructure

• Research Computing: on-premise (Seattle Campus) cyberinfrastructure
• eScience Institute: hub for data science collaboration at the UW
• Shared Research Facilities & Resources

Sponsored Research Resources

Office of Research (OR)

• Human Subjects Division
• Office of Animal Welfare
• Office of Sponsored Programs
• PI Resources Quick Start
• Step by Step Proposal Submission Quick Guide

Translational Research

• ITHS Technology Development Center
• WWAMI Resource Directory

UW Libraries

• UW Libraries Faculty Guide
• Research Data Services
• Data Resources in the Health Sciences
• Impact Factors Library Guide: guide includes information on Journal Impact Factor, Author Impact Factor, Article Impact Factor, and Documenting Your Research Impact
• Research Impact Checklist: suggestions for establishing your research identity, expanding your reach, and monitoring & describing your research impact
• Publication strategies: guidance on Publishing and Open Access, including author’s rights and publishing agreements

First Steps

1. Confirm with your department your PI eligibility.
2. Develop your required training plan and track progress using MyResearch Training Transcript. Your department administrator can assist you with planning and tracking.
   • Review Training Resources in the PI Resources Quick Start.
3. Identify potential funding sources.
   • Meet your mentors and colleagues to discuss the best agency or foundation matches for your research interests.
   • Look for funding opportunities for external and internal funding on the Office of Research Funding Opportunities.
4. Meet with your mentor, chair, and/or dean for guidance on what can make your proposal competitive.
5. Learn about ORCID iDs and their benefits. The University of Washington strongly encourages researchers to register for their unique iD.

Plan Your First Proposal

1. Review the Step by Step Proposal Submission Quick Guide to get a general understanding of the submission process.
2. If appropriate, meet with your departmental staff to build a plan for proposal development and submission.
3. Verify with your departmental leadership that you can fulfill the project requirements within the constraints of your department/school.
   • For instance, equipment, graduate students, wet bench space, or items such as cost share and travel not paid for by the sponsor.
   • Work with your department to provide documentation of support in these areas of the proposal.
4. Budget
   • Review information on developing proposal budgets.
   • Become familiar with Facilities & Administration Costs (F&A) and how these will impact your proposal. Review F&A Rates at the UW.
   • Review Central Resources available to support activities in your proposal.

Additional Considerations at Proposal Time

1. Does your research involve animals, human subjects or Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) considerations? Review Additional Considerations for questions you should consider in these types of research. You will want to meet with the Office of Animal Welfare, Human Subjects Division, EH&S as appropriate.
2. Are you collaborating with other institutions?
   • Agreement Types: Agreements related to research & sponsored activity.
3. Are you collaborating with other countries? Review Foreign Interests in Sponsored Programs and Foreign Influence Through the Research Lifecycle. Watch the Foreign Influence in Sponsored Programs video.
4. Will you be doing classified or restricted research? Review Classified or Restricted Research.
5. Do you need to include a Data Management Plan? Review NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy Requirements and Resources, and the UW Libraries Research Data Services.
6. Where are you going to publish? Build publishing fees into your budget as needed. Review Scholarly Publishing and Open Access.
   
7. Do not submit a proposal without getting department, school, and OSP approval through the UW’s SAGE system according to the UW’s deadline policy.

Award Acceptance

Pre-award Sponsor Requests

Reach out to the UW’s Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) when you receive pre-award sponsor requests for additional materials and information. Review guidance on responding to pre-award requests from sponsors for details.

Advance Spend

If approved for pre-award spending, use the SAGE Advance Request tool to request an Advance Award.

Award Acceptance and Setup

• When you receive an award notification, review PI/Campus Steps to Create an Award Set-up Request (ASR) under How to get an award set up at the UW.
• Review award notification & make appropriate updates to the proposal budget in SAGE Budget, and link to the ASR. After the ASR is submitted, OSP will review for acceptance.
• OSP is the only office with delegated authority to accept sponsored awards on behalf of the UW. If an award is made, OSP handles all negotiations with the sponsor and accepts the award on behalf of the university.
• Provide Compliance Information: A variety of compliance areas need to be reviewed and approved before funds can be released. See Communicating Compliance Information.
• An award becomes available in the UW’s financial system after both OSP and Grant & Contract Accounting (GCA) have reviewed and approved the Award Setup Request in SAGE.
• You’ll learn more about other PI, OSP, and GCA responsibilities that occur throughout the life of an award in the required Grants Management for Investigators course.

Preparing for Award Management

Consult with departmental staff to confirm administrative & compliance procedures are in place for:

Spending

• Confirm financials in Workday and Award Portal— view all Award Lines and associated worktags.
• Set up appropriate delegations for spending approval on budgets/worktags.
• Set up purchasing and documentation processes that follow department and school/college internal controls to avoid negative downstream financial audit impacts.
• Review federal cost principles and understand your responsibility to ensure all award expenditures comply with these principles. See Financials/Spending for more information.

Records management

• Set up records management plan and retention schedule.
• UW’s Records Management Services offers specific guidance for grant and contract records retention.

Data privacy and security

• Confirm you have set up systems to protect privacy and are meeting sponsor requirements for data security

Invoicing and reporting schedules

• Finalize agreements such as subawards, data use agreements, or confidentiality agreements.
• Communicate invoicing schedules and processes for receiving and approving invoices for subawards with collaborators and staff (only PIs can approve subaward invoices in Workday).
• Set up progress reporting schedule according to the terms of your sponsored award agreement.

Hiring and Training Personnel

• Start early to fill any positions that result from an award. Hiring processes are often tough to navigate and take time.
• All federally funded projects require effort and project certification. Familiarize yourself and your team with the UW’s Employee Compensation Compliance (ECC) system for meeting this compliance requirement.
• Make sure you and your team have completed all required training and set up appropriate delegations for safety plans and safety training. In your role as PI, it is your responsibility to ensure that all members of your research team document the completion of all required training. MyResearch Training Transcript (MRTT) tracks most required training.