FAQs

The most commonly requested organizational codes and numbers are listed below and on our Institutional Information & Rates section of this website. If you cannot find what you need on this list, please contact OSP. 

Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS): 04-1508581 
Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code: 81359 
Congressional District: MA-002
Taxpayer Identification Number (EIN): 04-2121659
Human Subjects Assurance #: FWA00015024 
Animal Welfare Assurance #: A3277-01 

WPI has subscribed to a number of services that will help you identify funding opportunities that might be relevant to your area of study. https://fundingtoolkit.wpi.edu/find-funding/.  Please also reach out to RSI who can help. 

Please contact RSI for assistance with proposal writing.  If your proposal is to a Foundation FCP can assist you. 

Yes, you should only have one fastlane/research.gov ID. The new account management system supports you having multiple organizational affiliations. You can request a role at WPI by using the “Add a New Role” function. See here for details.

Please see your contact by department here.  You will also receive an email directly from the assigned preaward team member within 48hrs. 

Normally a student will require 18 credits for each year.

We recommend that you budget for at least one semester and 9 tuition credits for the academic year.  If you are appointing during the summer period you do not need to budget for tuition. 

Contact PreAward if the program announcement limits the number of submissions from WPI. PreAward will work with the AVPR and RSI to determine if there will be an internal competition.

We recommend that you submit NSF proposals through Fastlane.  NIH, DoD, Dept of Ed proposals are usually submitted through grants.gov.  Some agencies have their own systems for submission.   OSP preaward will help you identify the correct submission system. 

All of your completed proposal documents must be uploaded into the application two business days in advance to ensure a proper review. This leaves OSP approximately one business day to review and submit before the sponsor deadline.  Please see here for the proposal development timeline. 

Cost Share is the portion of a project or program cost not borne by the sponsor. It is WPI’s share in the cost of conducting the project/program. Once committed, the value of the cost sharing is a binding obligation to WPI and subject to audit upon award. 

WPI as an institution has a cost share policy which states what types of cost share can be automatically committed, what needs approval, who provides that approval, and how this is documented before submission. The first step will be to fill out an NOI and send the solicitation to your pre-award contact so they can review the requirements. Please note this can be a lengthy process, so you should reach out to OSP as early as possible if your proposal requires cost-share.

Please reach out to your Post-Award contact to inquire about the status of your agreement. There may be negotiations with the sponsor or compliance issues such as COI, Human Subjects, etc. that we are actively working to resolve.   

Changes to personnel typically require prior approval from the sponsor. Each sponsor is different in the level of detail they require to submit such a request (e.g. biosketch, C&P, a revised budget, etc.). All changes in PI and/or other Key Personnel on your award should be reviewed with your OSP Post-Award contact, they will assist you in navigating the different sponsor requirements.

A significant reduction in effort (25% or more) for the PI or other key personnel usually requires prior sponsor approval. Reduction includes an absence or disengagement from the project for an extended period of time of 3 months or more. The sponsor will typically require a justification outlining the change, why it is necessary and/or the impact to the project.

Please contact your Post-Award contact who will assist you with any budgetary or scope changes that result from the reduction of effort.

Grant Balance and transaction reports are available in the Grants Management Worklet.  They are very easy to run and contain the same information that the old Banner reports had.  Instructions can be found on the SPA Website.  PIs and grant financial analysts have the ability to run these reports at any time.

Please reach out to your Post-Award contact to inquire about the status of your award. There may be negotiations with the sponsor or compliance issues such as COI, Human Subjects, etc. that we are actively working to resolve.

Please see the chart of allowable and unallowable costs here.

If you are processing a spend transaction and do not know the grant number, you can start typing the name of the grant and search for it.   If you are looking for a list of your grants or balance/spend information, reports are available in the grants management worklet.  Instructions can be found on the SPA Website.  PI's and grant financial analysts have the ability to run these reports at any time.

Please check with the administrative employee in your department who processed your summer salary request.  That person will be able to look in their process history archive to find the request and check on the status.  You can also search your inbox archives (see below).

Go to your Workday inbox and click the Archive tab.  Click the little arrow under the archive tab (on the right) and “view more processes”.  Enter a time frame (or leave blank for all) and this will give you a list of actions you have submitted or approved.  You can search by filtering and/or sorting the results.

Due to the additional disclosures now required for NSF Current and Pending and NIH Other Support documents, the Office of Sponsored Programs will no longer be able to provide these documents for faculty as we do not have access to the additional information now required. You are able to access reports on your sponsored research activity in InfoEd. A synopsis of the information now required is given below, with additional links to the sponsors’ relevant webpages.

NIH Other Support: NIH requires disclosure of all resources made available to a researcher in support of and/or related to all of their research endeavors, regardless of whether or not they have monetary value and regardless of whether they are based at WPI. Resources to be disclosed as “Other Support” may include grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements (regardless of the legal recipient), as well as non-WPI appointments / positions and in-kind resources provided by non-WPI entities that are not freely available to other researchers (e.g., laboratory equipment, research materials, lab personnel, etc.). 21-073, 21-110

NSF Current and Pending support: NSF requires disclosure of all resources made available to an individual in support of and/or related to all of his/her research efforts, regardless of whether or not they have monetary value. Current and pending support also includes in-kind contributions (such as office/laboratory space, equipment, supplies, employees, students. In-kind contributions not intended for use on the project/proposal being proposed also must be reported. Current and pending support information must be provided for this project, for ongoing projects, and for any proposals currently under consideration from whatever source, irrespective of whether such support is provided through the proposing organization or is provided directly to the individual. Disclosure Table, FAQ’s, PAPPG

It is the responsibility of each faculty to provide the most accurate information for these documents. We encourage you to maintain an active SciENcv profile for this information. We also encourage you to review this training powerpoint for more information.

Go to your Workday inbox and click the Archive tab.  Click the little arrow under the archive tab (on the right) and “view more processes”.  Enter a time frame (or leave blank for all) and this will give you a list of actions you have submitted or approved.  You can search by filtering and/or sorting the results.

Yes.  Your departmental head or manager must approve the use of your Academic year time as cost share.

Allocation of credit is the method by which WPI allocates overhead return to faculty.  If there are number of faculty on a grant, the overhead return will be in proportion with allocation of credit. PI’s and their associated departments receive portion of the overhead return on each grant.

For example, a single PI proposal would be “100%”, as all of the PI overhead return will go to the single PI. For teams with more than one senior person, OSP always asks the lead PI. If you do not have a preference we recommend determining it based on effort (e.g., a PI and CO-PI with 1 month of effort each would split allocation of credit 50%-50%). The departmental allocation follows the same distribution as senior personnel.

As per WPI policy this must be approved by the Provost.

A proposal routing form (PRF) is an internal tracking document which is created for each proposal submission. It is a written record of the allocation of credit between the key personnel team and also provides a PI conflict of interest certification. Additionally, it documents if there is any cost share. The pre-award team creates this for you in AdobeSign at the time you submit your NOI. It must be signed by the PI, Department Head, and Dean and then returned to OSP 5 business days before the proposal deadline, or your proposal will not be submitted (starting 1/1/2022).

WPI has several different negotiated rates. 53.77% is the full overhead rate used for on-campus, research activities. It is likely that your proposal falls into this category.

If a sponsor mandates using a specific overhead rate, we will use that in the budget. This happens most commonly with foundation proposals.

Other rates include a 26% off-campus rate, which is used when the activities of the grant are conducted completely off-campus (such as a study-abroad site).

“Instruction” (45.75%) and “Other Research Activity” (36.84%) are used by OSP on a case-by-case basis if the PI feels their proposal does not fall within the scope of "research activities".

Yes, the overhead rate is applied to the first $25,000 of a subaward per our federally negotiated overhead agreement with ONR. This is because WPI, as an institution, is managing and facilitating the subaward. This requires institutional resources to administer.

The best definitions come from NSF.

There are three types of activity: basic research, applied research and experimental development. Basic research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view. Applied research is original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific, practical aim or objective. Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on knowledge gained from research and practical experience and producing additional knowledge, which is directed to producing new products or processes or to improving existing products or processes

Source: https://nsf.gov/statistics/randdef/rd-definitions.pdf

No – please send the NDA to OSP for review or ask for the WPI standard NDA agreement template.

OSP reviews and helps negotiate Sponsored Research Agreements/Contracts. We are happy to review the scope of work if you are unsure whether it qualifies as sponsored research, and will help you find the right department if it does not. To complete a sponsored research agreement, you will work with your OSP Pre-Award contact to establish a budget and scope of work. We recommend using the WPI template research agreement which your OSP contact will provide.