r/ResearchAdmin

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?

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?

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!

Does your pre award team make edits to your grant applications? Or does the lab admin/PI admin?

Pre award SPO reviews ours then the admin have to make all edits. Curious if other universities the reviewers also make small corrections for you.

One more day!!! Most of ours are in to DOE, and 6 left with OSP.

For those working in pre-award, do you help your PIs create their NIH biosketches in SciENcv, or do your PIs usually handle that themselves?

I’m not talking about the PI certifying it. I mean more like they send you an old biosketch, and you enter everything in SciENcv for them. Just curious how common that is at other institutions.

is this considered part of the pre-award/research admin role, or is it generally viewed as the PI’s responsibility?

Had a PI send me their old biosketch and ask me to enter everything into SciENcv because they “don’t know how to do it.” I went ahead and completed it, but it got me wondering how other institutions handle this.

I understand helping with formatting, compliance, answering questions, and I of course work on other support in SciENcv. But honestly, entering all their degrees, honors, positions, etc. feels like something the PI should be responsible for themselves.

The PI is relatively young and definitely capable of learning the system and not that busy (in their early career), so I’m curious, for those in pre-award, do you consider this part of your job, or are PIs at your institution expected to handle their own biosketch entries?

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

Hi everyone! I have a BS and MS in psychology and currently work as a research assistant writing manuscripts and doing data analysis. I've always thought that my only option was to go on to do my PhD, but I've been considering other paths lately. Before getting my masters, I worked as a study coordinator and helped with scheduling and other administrative tasks. Is it hard for someone who has mainly done research to transition into the admin side of things? What are some skills I should be looking to build if I want to land a job in this space?

Our sub-site PI’s ORCID ID is not linked in eRA Commons and is causing a validation error. Can this be entered manually?

Which part of Genesis are we in? The flood?

**We should all get $5 added to our salary every time NIH updates a policy or adds another step (or removes one, then adds it back, then updates it).**

Saw this today: it looks like we need to make sure PI LOS include this in their LOS going forward in connection with NOT-OD-23-182 https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-23-182.html

NIH expects recipients to ask potential subrecipients, at the application stage, to submit language in their letters of support indicating their awareness of these requirements and the subrecipient’s willingness to abide by all requirements should an award be issued.

grants.nih.gov

NOT-OD-23-182: NIH Final Updated Policy Guidance for Subaward/Consortium Written Agreements

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: NIH Final Updated Policy Guidance for Subaward/Consortium Written Agreements NOT-OD-23-182. NIH

Does anyone else have a manager that somehow makes every task 2x harder than it needs to be?

Like, the work itself is already stressful enough with deadlines, compliance, and constant follow-ups. But then your manager adds extra layers of confusion, changes directions constantly, micromanages small things, or creates unnecessary processes that slow everything down.

At some point it feels more exhausting than doing the actual job.

How do you deal with this without completely burning out?

fyi, I was just working on an NIH Biosketch and found new (file date 5/1/2026) instructions clarifying the citing of products (listed in the biosketch) in the personal statement and CtoS of the supplement):

"You may provide in-text, parenthetical references for any of the ten products listed in the Products section of your Biographical Sketch Common Form that highlight your experience and qualifications for this project." (and similar language for the CtoS).

links from here: https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process/write-application/forms-directory/biographical-sketch-common-form

This differs (to my interpretation, at least) from what is (still 5/4/2026) listed in items 3, 4, 5 in the Biosketch FAQ.

Can someone please explain this Research Security Training certification to me please ? PIs need to do this to be able to apply for grants ?

I need help from those on the accounting and post-award side of things. Our grants accountant wants faculty to pinpoint down to the week and month and sometimes even day when in the summer payments will occur instead of allocating the funds throughout the entire summer for a project. This gets to be problematic when a faculty member has multiple grants.

For example, Dr. X has an NSF grant funding 1 summer month, NIH funding .5. He'll be working on both throughout the summer, but the accountant wants to pointpoint that he will get paid in say June for Grant 1, and July for Grant 2 so there is no overlap. My thinking is, that a faculty member can work on two grants at the same time in the sense of they can be working on NSF in the morning and NIH in the afternoon. It doesn't make sense to force them to separate them completely for payments. Am I wrong? Is there a reason not to just pay both throughout the course of the entire summer recognizing that is when the work is taking place and the NSF would add up to 1 month of work once the summer is completed and the NIH would add up to .5? We've gotten down to having to factor by specific days, for example, this person will be paid from May 17 through June 17 and then for this other grant they will be paid from June 18 whenever.

Hi all, two questions:

1. if the PI is serving as a mentor in k award, will this need to be included this in their other support?

2. If received JIT for that K award, will you include this under pending?