The Office of Post-Award Management (OPAM) continues to look for ways to process awards in a timely manner and to streamline the process. Through collaboration with the Office of Research Compliance, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and Institutional Review Board (IRB), we have made improvements to the Principal Investigator Award Agreement (PIAA) document. These changes will allow OPAM to process awards without having a protocol in place before an Award Account is assigned an Account Number. Past practice has been that OPAM would wait for approvals before sending them forward for account set up, which added significant time.
When a project involves human or animal subjects, OPAM will trigger the compliance PIAA for PIs to certify protocols with their approval number or state that a protocol is pending. Built into the PIAA is an acknowledgement that PIs understand activities involving humans or animals may not begin until a protocol has been approved by the appropriate office.
The PIAA will also notify the appropriate office to make them aware that a project has been funded that may require them to work with a PI to have a protocol approved.
