Survey Question 2
What do you feel would be the advantages of the methods you labeled as effective in the previous question?
Team based:
Team based:
- Helps to ensure that work by college or department doesn't get backed up and still preserves the relationships that develop.
- Have a backup in the event of absence of primary.
- Have two SPAs familiar with agencies and departments.
- No waiting for customer service.
- None.
- Not just one person is overseeing a unit.
- Service will not be delayed if one person is on vacation or sick.
- Provides more than one SPA to review time critical documents.
- Proposal could be divided between SPAs during busy deadlines, but it would provide continuity for the PI by having a main point of contact.
- This would add depth of knowledge by the SPAs and backup as needed.
- It is nice having a back-up when the loads are excessive.
- I like the idea of having a back up person, in case my main contact is out of the office.
- More nimble at deadline time.
- Faster processing.
- Teams last; teams help people become specialists in a related topic; teams reveal potential colleagues and mutual funding programs; teams avoid stereotyping of what you should be doing based on which college you are in rather than where your expertise and interests lie; etc.
- Proposal support will be available when it matters.
- This method provides a backup so that work can continue if a SPA is on vacation...the other options rely upon a single person which is nice for continuity, but makes progress difficult when there are a lot of grants and contracts going out at one time.
- It is helpful to work with someone on a regular basis who is familiar with your program and you are familiar with them. It helps to keep you from having to explain certain things every time you do a proposal.
- Both PI and SPA get to know one another. SPA would be come more familiar with granting agencies and be effective/efficient in the long run.
- Not sure.
- There is always an assigned backup. A proposal is not at risk of "falling through the cracks" if the SPA is not available, the backup will automatically take over.
- Best of all worlds.
- This means that people get to know the SPA better.
- Can pair high & low demand college/units.
- This could be based on agency or discipline. The advantage of by agency is that we build personal contacts between OSP and the contracting officers in agencies.
- Familiarity of types of grants usually received; assurance of backup.
- From the beginning you know who will assist you.
- None.
- Getting to know the PI and their work and usual grants that they apply for (history).
- PI would know what to expect, in terms of who is going to help with their proposal.
- Faster customer service if someone is out of the office.
- Backup and check/verify correctness of primary.
- This would be fine as it is very similar to "college" except you have a back up plan.
- PIs, DGAs, and SPAs develop a working relationship that may not be as strong if it was done on a round robin basis. Also, DGAs who work with a number of PIs, would be working with the SPA(s) on all/most proposals.
- I don't like to have to rely on one person to work with me. My primary job should be to write proposals and OSP's job is to facilitate that by being available for me.
- Back-up/redundancy.
- You get to know the SPA and vice-versa. Otherwise we often have a revolving door of people and do not know who to contact.
- The main SPA knows the PI and the way he/she does things, then a back up in case the main in unavailable. The best of both worlds.
- There would be two people that one would work with on a regular basis.
- Each time the PI submits a proposal, he/she knows who to contact in OSP with questions, etc.
- None.
- OSP would be able to find proposals. With current method, if the PI does not know the assigned number, the proposal often cannot be found.
- None.
- Why?
- I don't see any particular advantage in this.
- This method should spread the SPA workload, but PIs would have a consistent point of contact.
- Easy for OSP, bad for everyone else.
- What does your last name have to do with the type of grants/external agencies you work with?
- OK until someone changes their name.
- None.
- NO ADVANTAGE.
- Not much. The SPA you work with will not be familiar with your budgets or the funding agencies you work with.
- Higher degree of expertise as funding can follow disciplines also develop a deep relationship with a SPA.
- The SPA will be aware of what kind of projects are submitted by the college and what things are needed for those particular subject matters.
- Develop relationship.
- Familiarity.
- Historical knowledge of college programs and submissions.
- They are familiar with PIs and renewing awards.
- Standardization.
- Comprehensive knowledge of college/unit grants and PIs.
- PIs may vary, but some college have grant developers of administrators who work on all proposals. It would be confusing for the grant staff to change SPAs based on PI.
- Familiarity with grants of the college, how process/individuals work in college administration.
- Current method is inadequate.
- Same contact all the time. Otherwise, we waste time "orienting" a new SPA to our projects and therefore proposals take longer to process.
- We have excellent College staff (CNR) and it is essential to be able to walk down the hall and talk to these staff.
- Facilitates close collaborations between PI and SPA and trusting relationship.
- This method has worked well for me so far.
- I like getting to know the person who is my "GO TO" person.
- Consistent service.
- Similar types of demands.
- Some colleges have different needs and SPAs are not up to date on some of the different needs.
- SPAs get to know the field they review for, but PIs are not left high and dry if someone is overloaded, sick or on vacation.
- Familiarity with process of typical agency, e.g. NSF, DoD.
- Efficiency in working with the same SPA for all proposals.
- Develops a relationship between PIs and OSP reps. essential.
- Consistent contact and personal relationship + similar types of proposals and submission issues.
- Need to assign SPA workloads proportional to grant activity of a college.
- Similar types of grants.
- Doing this by college creates "experts" in SPAs but it also seems to over-burden those SPAs whose work comes from specific heavy-volume colleges. Maybe dividing the colleges into department sub-groups would help.
- SPA gets acquainted with the PIs in a college and accustomed to the agencies and types of proposal associated with that college.
- consistency and customer service.
- Customer business process knowledge.
- MY FAVORITE. You develop a relationship with that person and that person gets to know your research.
- DGA works w/one OSP/SPA for college.
- This is ok, but even within the college of science there is quite a variety of funders and needs of the PIs that could confuse or slow down the SPA's work if they are not familiar with the funder or individual PI's needs.
- SPAs are familiar with the quirks of agencies we apply to and the needs for grants in our college and can spot issues.
- SPA would be most familiar with the types of proposals the college generally submite.
- Familiarity, convenient access, one-stop.
- More even distribution of proposals within OSP.
- None.
- Proposals processed sooner and by someone who's actually available.
- Faster response, cross-training in OSP.
- None.
- Faster processing.
- Know the SPA; how to operate; knowledge of projects.
- Lack of above.
- Evens out the workload for the SPAs, and may shorten the processing time for the PIs.
- Easy for OSP, bad for everyone else.
- Should also work.
- Most efficient if everyone is equally skilled.
- Maximizes the efficiency of our limited staff.
- None.
- Terrible idea; PI does not know what to expect in terms of who they will work with; maybe it would be an advantage in that the SPA would perhaps get more variety.
- NO ADVANTAGE.
- Not much. The SPA you work with will not be familiar with your budgets or the funding agencies you work with.
- This would be terrible. I would not enjoy having to work with a different person every time.