Senior Research Administrator

Job Description

FULL-TIME. Hybrid flexible schedule after orientation, in office 3 days per week/remote 2 days per week

The Senior Research Administrator for the New England College of Optometry (NECO) provides regulatory expertise, professional guidance, and administrative support to the Director of Research and Principal Investigators (PIs) in order to encourage and support the application for external research funding, and to ensure that such funding is used for authorized/allowable purposes in compliance with applicable grant and contract terms, federal and state regulations, and NECO policies and procedures.

Support of these goals is accomplished through prudent development and management of budgets and allowable expenses, effort reporting, approvals of cost transfers, sub-recipient monitoring, review of federal administrative and non-salary costs, and serving as the key resource for compliance-related issues and the coordination of various audits. This Senior Research Administrator works highly independently to manage the pre-proposal, proposal development, and post-award (financial compliance) activities for a diverse set of federal and non-federal sponsored research projects, sub-awards, and/or cross-school initiatives.

• Discuss early phases of project ideas with PIs to assist in identifying potential funding opportunities relevant to NECO's research interests.
• Assist PIs with assembling the components of research proposals for submission to a variety of sponsors including federal, state, nonprofit, industry and internal/college; the various stages of proposal development including budget preparation and budget justification, certification forms, cover sheets, contracts and legal review, memoranda of understanding (industry sponsored), institutional letters of support, data sharing and publications agreements, and adherence to sponsor, government and NECO guidelines.
• Assist PIs in managing required reporting, including assembling and submitting progress reports (RPPRs), Just in Time (JIT) Reports, invention statements, closeout reports and responding to any other requests for information from sponsors.
• Assist PIs in submitting prior approval requests to sponsors, including No Cost Extensions, Budget revisions, changes in project scope or principal investigators.
• Monitor updates to college, state, and federal research policies, procedures and regulations and communicate changes that may impact the NECO research community to NECO faculty and staff.

• Assist PIs with sponsor communication and correspondence; notify PIs when progress reports are due.
• Collaborate with the Director of Research and NECO librarians in areas such as data management, research metrics, and protocols for depositing research materials in NECO's institutional repository.
• Identify areas of potential institutional risk for consideration/assessment by the Director of Research at NECO.
• Advise faculty on research compliance issues including, but not limited to financial conflict of interest reporting, effort reporting, IRB/IACUC regulations, and data management best practices.
• Assist in the development and coordination of educational/training programs on research compliance topics.
• Collaborate with the Director of Research and Administration on the development, review, and revision of NECO research policies.

• Ensure incoming awards are set up properly in the NECO systems.
• Work with Human Resources and the Business Office to update effort allocations for faculty and staff on new awards (as specified in the grant budgets).
• Assemble and execute subawards and subcontracts with external institutions.
• Review for appropriateness expenditures on research grants and contracts to ensure compliance with all applicable sponsor and institutional policies.
• Provide monthly budget summaries and projections…