​​​​​​​Collaborations and Required Documentation

​​​​​​​Collaborations and Required Documentation Allison Koss

Subrecipients, Consultants, and Contractors (Vendors)

It is important to line up collaborations with research partners four weeks or more prior to the due date to request required documents and to work out the appropriate roles for each collaborator. There is often confusion at the proposal stage when determining whether a participant in a project will be a subrecipient, consultant, or contractor (vendor). The proper determination depends mainly on the substance of the relationship and engagement between UMass and the entity. It is important to make the determination before the proposal and budget are finalized.

Proper classification of collaborations and correct documentation is in the PI's and the university's best interest. Not doing so will slow down the proposal and award process, and can also have a negative impact on the funds available for project direct costs. In addition: 

  • The sponsor's approval process (required by most sponsors when a subaward is added or identified after an award is made) can significantly delay the issuance of the subaward and could impact the scope of work.
  • If a subaward must be added, funds for the subaward (which will include direct and their indirect costs) will have to be rebudgeted from awarded funds, which could leave a deficit in the remaining funds available to complete the full project.
  • Intellectual property rights are given to the subrecipient, and not to consultants or contractors (vendors).
  • The university may be subjected to significant institutional tax penalties should the individual be incorrectly classified as a consultant when they are actually working on the project in a manner consistent with employer/employee relationships, or where the individual is carrying out a role that is more consistent with a subrecipient role. 
  • The university may be subject to audit findings if awarded funds are improperly allocated or not expended in compliance with federal requirements and guidance.
  • International (foreign) collaborations may require additional vetting, budgeting considerations (International Research Tab), and compliance requirements. Please reach out to OPAS well in advance of routing any proposal with an international component.

Please review the definitions of subrecipient, consultant, or contractor (vendor). If you have any questions, or need clarification, it is advisable to contact your OPAS pre-award administrator, or reach out to the R&E Help Desk prior to finalizing your proposal and budget.

Proposal Requirements & Documentation

The following documentation is required when the UMass proposal contains one of the following:

Subrecipient

The UMass PI must plan for the inclusion of a subrecipient in the proposal in advance of the proposal deadline to OPAS to allow sufficient time to gather all required documents and for the PI to review and approve the scope and budget of the subrecipient. If proper documentation is not included, the subaward may need to be excluded from the project or included on a “To Be Named” basis only. 

Subrecipient Documentation:

Here’s what to request from prospective subrecipient on any proposal. OPAS requires these items before the proposal can be submitted to the sponsor.

  1. A UMass Amherst subrecipient commitment form (found here under the Pre-Award FORMS section) must be completed and signed by the Sponsored Projects Office (OPAS equivalent) of the subrecipient, including members of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP). If an FDP member, the subrecipient's information from the FDP Clearinghouse site should be uploaded to Kuali and included with the other subrecipient documents.
  2. A letter signed by the subrecipient's business official (OPAS equivalent) endorsing the work referenced in an attached statement of work and budget.
  3. Statement of Work (or Scope of Work) describing the work to be done by the subrecipient’s personnel only. It should not include any work to be done by UMass personnel) .
  4. Detailed budget (use sponsor format if required). Budgets should include detailed yearly and cumulative budgets (itemized budget should include salaries and wages, fringe benefits, equipment, travel, materials and supplies, and other costs as allowable).
  5. Budget justification.
  6. Biographical sketch in sponsor format for all senior personnel.
  7. Current and Pending Support/Other Support forms for all senior personnel (if required).
  8. Collaborator and Other Affiliations Form/List of Conflicts of Interest for Selection of Reviewers (if required).
  9. Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (if the subrecipient is charging indirect costs).
  10. Fringe rate agreement (if charging fringe benefits) or link to a PDF.
  11. Letter of commitment or collaboration (if required by sponsor).

Other required documentation may include:

  • Other documents as required by the sponsor’s guidelines.
  • Facilities/Resources/Equipment statement following sponsor format
  • When required, subrecipient documents should be put onto sponsor forms or formatted according to sponsor requirements.
  • Additional sponsor forms, including certifications as applicable 

The subrecipient's grant's office should forward the items listed above to the UMass PI well in advance of the university's internal deadline. The UMass PI will review the subrecipient’s budget and statement of work, and if it looks in keeping with expectations, incorporate the subrecipient budget into the lead proposal.  Subrecipient documentation must be included in the proposal record for OPAS for review and to hold on file in case of audit. 

  • Merge subrecipient documentation into one PDF package per subrecipient with the subrecipient commitment form being the first document in the package. This minimally consists of the subrecipient form, scope of work, budget, budget justification, and indirect cost rate agreement (if applicable). Load subrecipient's approved documentation to the proposal record; attach in the Internal Attachment tab of Kuali before routing the proposal.
  • When required, some subrecipient documents need to be loaded into the sponsor’s online submission system (e.g. budgets, budget justifications, biographical sketches, current and pending, etc.).

A proposal that include subrecipients without a budget, budget justification, statement of work and subrecipient commitment form for each subrecipient will not be considered complete, and the proposal will not be logged into OPAS without these items.

Consultant

  • A signed letter from the consultant providing details on the nature of their consulting activities and documenting the basis for their rates (hourly or daily rate, # days or hours consulting, etc.).
  • A link to their published rate structure if available.
  • If the consultant is a colleague at another university or education institution the letter must confirm that the consulting activities will fall outside of the individual’s normal academic responsibilities and that he/she is not using his/her institution’s facilities, personnel, students equipment or any other resources for the consulting activities. If they are, then it is a subrecipient relationship, and not a consultancy.

Contractor (vendor)

  • A letter or formal quote from the contractor (vendor) detailing the activities, services, or items to be provided and the basis for the charges

Unpaid Collaborators/Other Significant Contributors

In general, when a named collaborator is going to provide information, expertise, and the like in a proposal, a letter from the collaborator should be included as part of the proposal, whether or not the collaborator will be paid by the project.

  • Unpaid Collaborators or Other Significant Contributors (OSC) do not have any measurable effort and do not conduct research on behalf of the proposed UMass project in a way that is integral to the project. OSC’s act in an advisory capacity with so little devoted effort it’s not measurable. An OSC conducts their own parallel research that can be complementary to ours but it should not be integral and incorporated into the aims of our project in such a way that makes them a foundational member of the research team. An OSC’s research is supplementary and complementary with ours in such a way that, all things being equal, our work could technically progress without their input. The point isn’t that they aren’t charging for effort, it isn’t that they don’t provide important contributions, it’s that their effort commitments are so minimal, they are not in theory measurable, thus they are characterized as having “no measurable effort.”
  • There can be collegial sharing of research results, but if the OSC’s effort is integral to the project and is committed to this project in a manner that in actuality results in measurable effort (beyond ad hoc contributions), then the proper collaborative vehicle would be a subaward.

OSCs provide things like:

  • Animal lines, like mice lines at no charge
  • Access to laboratories for training purposes. Often quid pro quo and of course gratis.
  • Provide ad hoc advisory consultations, gratis. Effort is so minimal that it is not measurable.
  • Shares results of their own research in a way that will supplement ours. This research will not be conducted in a way that solely benefits our project. The research is already being conducted by the OSC and the results are being shared. They are not carrying out or otherwise responsible for the conduct of research as stated in our Specific Aims. Time committed specifically to our project is so minimal that effort is not essentially measurable.

For NIH:

  • OSC’s are listed in the Senior Key person section of the proposal as well as the bottom of the Personnel Justification (if Modular), or at the bottom of the budget justification if non-modular.
  • A biographical sketch must be loaded in the Senior Key person section. If a biosketch is not available, the individual cannot be listed as an OSC. A letter of support however can be loaded, but they cannot be referred to in the proposal as an OSC.

For NSF:

  • Any substantial collaboration with individuals not included in the budget should be described in the Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources section of the proposal (see GPG) and documented in a letter of collaboration from each collaborator. Such letters should be provided in the supplementary documentation section of the Research.gov Proposal Preparation Module and follow the format instructions specified in the PAPPG.
  • Letters of collaboration should be limited to stating the intent to collaborate and should not contain endorsements or evaluation of the proposed project. The recommended format for letters of collaboration is as follows: “If the proposal submitted by Dr. [insert the full name of the Principal Investigator] entitled [insert the proposal title] is selected for funding by NSF, it is my intent to collaborate and/or commit resources as detailed in the Project Description or the Facilities, Equipment or Other Resources section of the proposal.”
  • While letters of collaboration are permitted, unless required by a specific program solicitation, letters of support should not be submitted as they are not a standard component of an NSF proposal. Letters of support are typically from a key stakeholder such as an organization, collaborator or Congressional Representative, and are used to convey a sense of enthusiasm for the project and/or to highlight the qualifications of the PI or co-PI.

Consultants

Consultants Sarah Vega-Liros

A Consultant may be an individual or a commercial entity and is a type of contractor (vendor) paid through a purchase order issued by the Office of Procurement. A consultant provides guidance or shares technical expertise on a specific aspect of the scope of work. In the past, the Internal Revenue Service issued audit findings against UMass regarding the payment of individuals as consultants rather than as employees or temporary employees. Therefore, special consideration must be taken in the appointment of consultants. Commonwealth of Massachusetts employees, including faculty from any of the other UMass campuses, may not serve as consultants.

A consultant's roles or characteristics include:

  • An individual consultant is a non-UMass employee hired to provide technical expertise in support of a sponsored research project. As a general rule, the activities performed by a non-UMass faculty member who is named as an individual consultant in a proposal must fall outside of the individual’s normal academic duties and cannot make use of his/her institutional facilities, personnel or students. If these criteria are not met, then the faculty member’s home institution should appear as a subrecipient in the UMass proposal rather than as a consultant. 
  • A consulting firm is a commercial entity whose regular business activity is to provide services similar to those proposed under the current project.
  • UMass and other Commonwealth of Massachusetts employees cannot be paid as consultants on UMass-sponsored projects.
  • A consultant lends their expertise and advice in their given field without conducting any independent research on the project. 
  • A consultant’s deliverable may be intermittent throughout the project, is not clearly defined and do not ordinarily generate patentable or copyrightable results of an original or substantive nature.
  • A consultant’s services are on a “work for hire” basis and all intellectual property or copyrightable rights are assigned to UMass by the consultant.
  • A consultant is not subject to the compliance requirements of the Prime Contract.
  • A consultant’s fee is based on an hourly or daily rate which is provided and explained in a consultant rate proposal.
  • A consultant must provide UMass with a letter that describes their role and indicates the number of days/weeks charged to the grant and provide daily or weekly rate. As a general rule, the activities performed by a non-UMass faculty member who is named as an individual consultant in a proposal must fall outside of the individual’s normal academic duties and cannot make use of his/her institutional facilities, personnel or students. If the consultant letter is on their home institution’s letterhead, the letter should indicate that the individual consultant will not be using their home institution’s facilities for any part of their proposed consultancy. An email to the PI or to OPAS may be substituted if this information is omitted from the signed letter.
Consultants

Contractors (Vendors)

Contractors (Vendors) Sarah Vega-Liros

A  contractor (vendor) is issued a purchase order based on a request sent by an administering unit to the university’s Procurement Office. The purchase of goods and services, including “consulting services,” are obtained from a commercial contractor. A contractor provides a good or service that is narrowly constrained or defined, normally a one-time procurement.

A contractor (vendor):

  • Provides similar goods and services to multiple customers as part of their routine business operations.
  • Competes for customers with other like providers.
  • Provices services that are ancillary to the scope of work.
  • Does not retain intellectual property or copyright to the deliverables.
  • Does not require cost sharing
  • Does not seek joint authorship of publications
  • Does not receive the general terms of the Prime Contract.

Note: If the individual or company in question provides a service for which a flat fee is charged for the work to be done and they are not involved in the research effort but simply provide a service at a fixed fee, this transaction of services is classified as a standard procurement rather than a subaward. 

Contractors (Vendors)

Subrecipients

Subrecipients Sarah Vega-Liros

A subrecipient, also known as subawardee (called an “Organization” in the Kuali system), is distinguished from both a contractor (vendor) and a consultant in that a subrecipient is responsible for a significant role under a sponsored project and engages in a reciprocal relationship with the prime recipient. Generally a subrecipient is defined as an entity, often another university, who helps the grantee carry out the activities of the award by independently performing a portion of the research work using their own facilities. 

The subrecipient:

  • Performs a substantive portion of the proposed Statement of Work incorporated into the Prime Contract.
  • Has responsibility for internal programmatic decision-making and design.
  • Is responsible for assisting the Prime Recipient in meeting the goals of the project.
  • Has its performance measured in relation to the larger project goals of the proposal and objectives of the program being funded.
  • Contributes to a broader purpose in relation to the funded scope of work, rather than a narrower role of providing goods or services for the direct benefit of the Prime Recipient.
  • Is responsible for adhering to applicable Federal programmatic compliance requirements.
  • May be required to contribute a proportionate amount of cost share to a project.
  • Retains intellectual property and copyright to the work produced by the subrecipient’s personnel; may co-author an article in a professional research journal.
  • Is considered a Co-PI of the project.

Note: The university does not issue subawards to individual persons; only to a company or organization.

The UMass detailed budget should not blend subrecipient costs with UMass project costs. Two separate detailed budgets should be included. The UMass detailed budget will include a line item each year showing Subrecipient Total Costs (inclusive of indirect costs). Please also add the Subrecipient as an Organization to the Kuali proposal development record. Please see additional information on inputting subrecipient information into Kuali.

Be sure to attach the required Subrecipient Documentation in the Kuali record as well.