Carnegie Mellon University

Steps to Establishing an Award

When the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) receives award documentation from a sponsor, this information is given to a Contracting Officer/Analyst to determine if it requires negotiation of terms & conditions. Once the award terms & conditions are acceptable, the award is signed by the Signature Authority, if necessary. The OSP Award Administrator electronically transmits the award to Sponsored Projects Accounting (SPA) to establish an Oracle account number.
Note: Some agreements are maintained in OSP. The OSP Award Administrator determines which agreements need to be transmitted to SPA.

SPARCS Awards Process

Gathering Award Information

In order to process an award, the OSP Award Administrator will obtain the following award information and documentation:

  • Finalized award document/agreement
  • Obtain Ancillary Reviews from Impacted Departments
  • Award Set-up Form from Responsible Department
  • Reconciled Budget* from Responsible Department
  • Verification of compliance* (IRB, IACUC, EH&S, COI, Export Controls) status from PI, Department Research Administrator, and/or ORIC. This may include permission to proceed for cases in which compliance related items are pending for various reasons.
    * as necessary

NOTE: Modifications will be handled in a similar manner, however, compliance updates will only be requested if human subjects or animal research are involved in the scope of work and associated protocols have either expired or are within 30 days of the expiry date and a renewal is not in progress.

Activating an Award

Once the award shell is created in SPARCS, the department Research Administrators/Business Managers have access to use the Inform/Update SPA activity to provide and communicate Oracle project(s) tasks/subtasks and funding to SPA. Once the Award and documentation are transmitted to SPA for review, SPA will generate an Oracle Award number.  

Modifications will be handled in a similar manner, if necessary.

Internal Award Requests

Early Award

Department Research Administrators/Business Managers may download Early Award request forms via the SPARCS Funding Proposal using the Generate Template activity. Once the remainder of the form is completed and all signatures have been obtained within the department, the form should be uploaded to the SPARCS Funding Proposal using the Request OSP Action activity. The award will then be processed as indicated above (Steps to Establishing an Award).

These awards are made at the financial risk of the department and will be charged to the account indicated on the Early Center form if the award is not received.

Award Extension

When the PI/Department requests an award extension directly from the sponsor (i.e. NSF no-cost extension), the OSP Award Administrator will be automatically notified and will update the SPARCS Award record as appropriate.

If the PI/Department requests an extension via OSP (i.e. in the form of a signed letter), the Research Administrator may download the Award Extension request form via the SPARCS Award workspace using the Generate Template activity. Once the form is completed and all signatures have been obtained within the department, the form and any sponsor required documents should be uploaded to the SPARCS Award using the Request OSP Action activity. The request will be evaluated to ensure accuracy and, if appropriate, a modification will be processed as indicated above (Gathering Award Information).