I know this comes up all the time.
It seems to me that universities that don't have a 5-day (or 10 or whatever) rule for getting complete proposal documents to Sponsored Programs think that having such a policy would help. Those universities that have such a policy know that it doesn't.
Faculty that have been caught - even when proposals failed- don't change their behavior.
At least half the time, the Grants and Contracts Officers will take the proposal anyway - subverting the policy themselves. I did the same thing when I was a GCO. So.... you know.... karma and all that. In some ways, that's a by-product of the staff being invested in the research we support.
Slapping the hands of the trouble-makers doesn't work - which is really all a policy does.
Appealing to their nature as upright citizens who want to do right (e.g. if they only understood how much work we have to do on a proposal, they wouldn't put us in this position) doesn't work. I'm sure they DO want to do right by us; they don't wish us ill. They just don't care all that much about what we do. The science comes first - before everything. Administration just has to wait, in their minds.
Maybe our job isn't to punish emergencies (even those unnecessarily caused by the faculty member) but rather to prevent them. I admit to occasionally wanting to open up a can of Ala-freakin'-bama all over a few people. (Make some popcorn, ya'll. There's gonna be a show.) But truly..... my better nature should prevail.
The thing is, I think actually making this better involves interruption of A LOT of systems - and I don't control very many of them. I'm looking at the links between research development and research administration - and making RD less optional (with what authority, you ask? Fair point.) Maybe cohorts of people (small ones) working together to prepare their first NIH proposal - working together but each on their own proposal. Maybe re-thinking notifications of upcoming grant proposals - although I doubt that will be much help. Maybe a little. Heck, I'vve considered putting together a SWAT-team for emergency proposals to try to get them out the door - and then billing the department for use of the team. OK, I was a little cranky that day. That ideas strays off the "prevention vs. management" tangent, anyway.
I don't know. Does anyone have insight on this? Everything is on the table, as far as I'm concerned.
A
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Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
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