Frequently Asked Questions

The best place to start is with your college/school Business Officer. RSP can also help. For general questions, please contact Yun Wu, Associate Director for Post-Award (yun.wu@wright.edu, 775-2651). For specific questions, go to the Post Award Services page and scroll down to the staff listing. Then locate the Grants Accountant that has responsibility for your department or sponsor.

You can get information on current activity by accessing Wings Express (Banner Finance Self-Serve). Instructions may be found on our Accessing Grant Information page. If you don’t have access to Wings Express, please contact your college/school Business Officer, who can also assist with other grant/contract financial questions you might have.

In accordance with University Policy 6350, "...any portion of the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) cost that is greater than the originally budgeted F&A will be canceled."

After adjusting for any F&A obligations (either under or over budget), RSP will request the college/school Business Officer to provide a departmental org/fund number into which the residual funds can be transferred. Typically this will be your RIF account.

Effort reporting on federal grants/contracts is a requirement of Uniform Guidance 2 CRF Part 220.  For each quarter that you work on a federal project, you will receive a form to review and approve your time spent on the research project (see
the Effort Reporting Policy). 

It depends on the terms and conditions of your award. Fixed price agreements would virtually never have restrictions; cost-reimbursement type awards often do. Most federal research awards are very flexible, as are most industry-funded and other private agreements. Most state-funded awards are heavily restricted. If you are unsure of what the restrictions might be in your particular case, please contact Yun Wu, Associate Director for Post-Award (yun.wu@wright.edu, 775-2651).

No. Nor can any university funds be so used under most conditions. As a general rule, it is best to find gift funds for this purpose.

Please see Guidelines for International Travel Paid for by the Government, The Fly America Act.

You should review the invoice to see if the charges appear to be consistent with the work that was done and reported to you by your counterpart at the subcontractor institution. If so, and if you are satisfied with the work, the invoice should be signed, dated, and returned to RSP. If there is a problem and/or you are not satisfied with the work being done, contact RSP immediately.

Your departmental or college/school business manager can initiate the transfer. Be sure to include the original purpose of the expenditure to enable expeditious RSP review for allowability and protect against future disallowances by auditors.

Both cost sharing and matching achieve a similar objective: to provide funds in addition to the sponsor's award toward the total costs of a project. Typically, cost sharing occurs when the university uses its own funds for this purpose, while matching takes place when the university raises funds from another source. Matching can also occur in situations where a sponsor requires the university to "match" what it provides on the basis of some prescribed formula (e.g., one-for-one match).

When proposals are submitted to a sponsor, the university is promising that, should the award be made, certain things are going to happen. One of those things is typically the devotion of effort by personnel who are key to the project. Uniform Guidance 2 CFR Part 220 requires a formal personnel activity reporting system as a means of documenting such promised effort has taken place. The university uses Banner to generate Effort Reports to fulfill that obligation. For further information, please see the Effort Reporting Policy.

Unless the colleague happens to be a WSU employee who also is on official travel status for the university, working on the same award and, therefore, entitled to be reimbursed under the travel budget of that award, the meal would not normally be considered an appropriate business meal; i.e., only your meal would be allowable.

RSP prepares the reports, with assistance from your department or college/school as needed.

Send an e-mail to the Yun Wu, Assoc. Director for Post-Award, at yun.wu@wright.edu. Explain that you need a no-cost extension, provide a valid reason (simply having funds left over is not a valid reason!), and put in the new end date that you are requesting (usually up to twelve months after the current end date). We will then contact the sponsor and you will be notified if and when the request has been approved.

Yes, usually with the sponsor’s permission, although typically what happens is that the sponsor terminates the award to WSU and makes a new award with the remaining funds to your new institution. For information on transferring equipment, please see University Policy 6360 Interinstitutional Acquisition or Release of Research Equipment.

You will need to have the Technology Transfer Office in RSP prepare a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA). Download the MTA Request Form (https://www.wright.edu/rsp/TechTrans/MTAReq.rtf), complete it, and follow the instructions for returning it. The same form would also be used if you contemplate receiving biological material from outside the university. MTAs are normally signed by a university official (at WSU, the Director of Technology Transfer), though some commercial sites (e.g., ATCC) do not require this.

Please see the information provided at https://www.wright.edu/rsp/TechTrans/index.html