Standard Operating Procedures

Cost Share

Updated January 11, 2024

Overview

Cost sharing is the portion of the total costs of a sponsored project that is borne by Arkansas State University rather than the sponsor. Cost sharing (sometimes called match) can take the form of salary support for project personnel or other material contributions such as funds to purchase supplies or equipment. It can also include in-kind contributions from a third party (not A-State) in support of the sponsored project objectives.

A specific and quantifiable offer of cost sharing in a proposal becomes an obligation that the university must fulfill. Generally, the university seeks to minimize these obligations because a voluntary commitment to cost share:

Cost sharing must comply with federal, university, and sponsor requirements. Cost sharing should only be engaged in when mandated by the sponsor, if needed to reflect the required effort to complete the project, or when the funding announcement emphasizes cost share as a competitive advantage.

Types of Cost Share

Mandatory – Mandatory cost sharing is required by the sponsor as a condition for proposal submission and award acceptance. A mandatory cost sharing requirement will be specified in the sponsor’s published request for proposals. If the mandatory level of cost sharing is not included in the submitted proposal, the sponsor will return the proposal without review.

Voluntary Committed – Voluntary committed cost sharing is cost sharing that is offered in the proposal but not required by the sponsor as a condition of proposal submission. Once offered by the institution in the proposal budget and agreed to by the sponsor, it becomes an obligation the university must fulfill.

Voluntary Uncommitted – Voluntary uncommitted cost sharing is cost share that is over and above an amount that was committed and budgeted for in a sponsored research agreement. It is neither pledged explicitly in the proposal nor stated in the award documents but occurs in the course of executing a project. This is not required to be documented or tracked by the university.

Procedure

Cost share eligibility

Principal Investigators (PIs) must obtain prior approval from their Chair or Dean, in writing, to commit cost-share on behalf of the University.

Research and Technology Transfer will aid in determining if the cost share meets the above cost share eligibility guidelines, and obtain appropriate documentation of approval from the PI's chair/dean before submitting the proposal.

All proposals with cost share must include the Director of Sponsored Programs Accounting in the approval chain in Cayuse for review. This must be added manually before the approval of Research and Technology Transfer and Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR).

Any deviation from this above procedure must be approved by the Executive Director of Research or the Vice Provost of Research, Innovation, and Discovery.

Preferred Methods of Cost Share

For Researchers Interacting with RTT (Pre-Award)

Updated March 14, 2024

NOTE: RTT needs proposal documents from PIs 10 business days or more in advance of the sponsor’s deadline.

Overview

The staff in Research and Technology Transfer (RTT) are your campus collaborators for preparing proposals for submission to federal and state agencies and other sponsors that provide external funding for research, creative endeavors, public service projects, contractual agreements, and fixed-fee agreements. Our expertise allows you to focus on the specific project, and we will assist to ensure all submitted applications are complete and all documents are prepared to the sponsor’s specifications and in compliance with university policy and state and federal law. RTT’s pre-award team wants the highest-quality, most competitive proposals to be submitted, and we will work with each scholar to ensure the development and submission of the best proposals.

Proposal Development Tools: The proposal development process requires access to various types of information to prepare the required proposal documentation.  Assistance can be found at the RTT website under the Investigator's Toolbox & Institutional Profile.

Proposal Submission Portal: Cayuse is the official submission portal used by Arkansas State University for proposal preparation, proposal approval, sign-off by the Vice Provost for Research, Innovation, and Discovery and submission to the sponsored agencies’ systems for electronic submission of sponsored funding proposals.

What RTT will provide:

What the Principal Investigator (PI) will provide to RTT:

Other important elements of the proposal development process

Important Reminders and Final Points

RTT needs proposal documents from PIs 10 business days or more in advance of the sponsor’s deadline. This is a firm requirement, and investigators may be denied grant submission and asked to wait for the next funding cycle if the internal deadline is not met. This requirement necessitates a lot of planning and coordination with collaborators in advance of a proposal submission. Please review the sponsor’s proposal solicitation, determine the sponsor’s deadline, and calculate and use the RTT deadline of 10 business days in advance of submission as your firm deadline.

Starting in FY24, RTT’s revised goals were to grow the number of submissions, increase the proportion of high dollar-value submissions, and increase interdisciplinary submissions. We have already been successful in this goal, which is a result of creative and innovative faculty members and their hard work. Thank you! It also means that the complexity of the requests and the sheer number of submissions has increased, and to collaborate with you effectively, we need your cooperation in the external funding pipeline.

Again, our mission is to submit the highest quality proposals possible. This requires time to prioritize, review, edit, load, receive internal approvals, and submit proposals.

Limited Submission

Updated November 21, 2025

Purpose

This procedure applied to all faculty and staff at Arkansas State University eligible to submit proposals to funding mechanisms with limited submission requirements. This document outlines Arkansas State University’s process for managing limited submission opportunities, where the number of proposals an institution can submit is restricted by the funding agency. This ensures the strongest proposals move forward for submission.

Procedure

1. Call for Applications

The Research and Technology Transfer (RTT) office announces an internal competition via email to identify proposals for submission to the funding agency. The announcement includes details about the funding opportunity, submission limits, and internal deadlines. The announcement will be shared with the college deans, carbon copying the members of the Faculty Research Awards Committee, so they are aware of their upcoming responsibility in the process. The deans are responsible for broader dissemination to the departments. RTT will also provide a 3-day Daily Digest notification of the limited submission opportunity for direct, campus-wide dissemination.

2. Submission

Interested applicants must submit a one-page project summary via email to research@astate.edu. The summary should include the elements below, as they pertain to the solicitation:

3. Internal Review Process

The internal review process consists of two steps:

4. Notification of Selected Proposals

RTT will notify applicants of the outcome of the internal competition. This notification will include next steps for the selected applicant to prepare the full proposal.

Timeline

An example timeline is provided below for the Limited Submission process. This may be modified depending upon the time between original notice and sponsor deadline for full submission.

 

Participant Support Costs

Updated January 11, 2024

Overview

Participant Support Costs are defined in Uniform Guidance 2 CFR 200.I as direct costs for items such as stipends, or subsistence allowance, travel allowances, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with conferences or training projects.

Definition of Participant

A participant is defined as a non A-State employee who is the recipient, not the provider, of a service or training associated with a workshop, conference, seminar, symposium, other short-term instructional or information sharing activity, or are the training beneficiary of a sponsored project. Participants do not perform work or services for the project or program unless it is for their own benefit. Participants may include: students, scholars, scientists from other institutions, teachers, state or local government personnel, or representatives from private-sector organizations. Employees of Arkansas State University are not eligible to receive participant support.

Unallowable Costs

The intent of participant support is solely to provide financial assistance for participants to attend conferences or defray the cost of participating in training programs.

Unallowable Costs Include:

Procedure

Participant support funding is typically restricted and exempt from F&A, requiring separate accountability from the rest of the award.

Participant support costs should be accounted for in a separate sub-budget as indicated on the Research and Technology Transfer budget spreadsheet, and will be issued a separate fund for expenditures upon award set up.

RTT will monitor proposal budgets to ensure that participant support costs are identified clearly and are appropriate and allowable.

Re-budgeting of participant support costs requires the prior approval of the sponsor. Re-budgeted costs may be subject to F&A if moved into the main grant fund.

Additional Information

See RTT SOP regarding Stipends for questions about stipend payments to participants/students

Sponsored Programs Accounting Participant Support Costs Guidelines: https://www.astate.edu/a/controller/spa/files/participant-support-costs-ug-edition.pdf

 

Combined Fellowship and Off-Campus Duty Assignment Support

Updated June 17, 2025

Arkansas State University encourages its faculty to apply for prestigious fellowships to further their research efforts. This procedure outlines the circumstances in which a faculty member can apply for off-campus duty assignment (currently referred to as compensated leave in the Faculty Handbook) while also accepting a prestigious fellowship that requires their leave of absence from their academic appointment.


The purpose of off-campus duty assignment is to provide opportunities for eligible faculty members to engage in professional activities that enhance their tenure at A-State while receiving regular salary. Such activities, in turn, also enhance the faculty members’ service to the university. In accordance with the stated purpose, off-campus duty assignment may be granted for research, writing, other professional creative activities, graduate study leading to advanced degrees, travel for student/research, retraining tenured faculty members who teach in programs being phased out, or for further study to upgrade specific program(s). Eligible faculty are encouraged to apply for off-campus duty assignment to initiate, continue, or complete research or creative activities. For more information, please visit the Faculty Research Awards Committee website or the Faculty Handbook.


Timeline for University Off-Campus Duty Assignment Requests:

August: Off-Campus Duty Assignment solicitation is announced
October: Faculty Research Awards Committee (“FRAC”) deadline
Late October/early November: FRAC meeting, discussion of expectations
November: FRAC application review
December – January: Decisions announced
August or the following January: Off-Campus Duty Assignment begins. See below for more information.


Off-Campus Duty Assignment Cycle:


October – Applications received in October should be made for the next Fall semester (August, 10 months in advance) or Spring semester (January, 15 months in advance).
Approved requests provide salary support to faculty at a rate of half-pay for an academic year or full-pay for a semester.

Combined Fellowship and Off-Campus Duty Assignment Principles:

 

 

Stipends

Updated January 11, 2024

Overview

Participant Support Costs are defined in Uniform Guidance 2 CFR 200.I as direct costs for items such as stipends, or subsistence allowance, travel allowances, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with conferences or training projects.

Definition of Participant

A participant is defined as a non A-State employee who is the recipient, not the provider, of a service or training associated with a workshop, conference, seminar, symposium, other short-term instructional or information sharing activity, or are the training beneficiary of a sponsored project. Participants do not perform work or services for the project or program unless it is for their own benefit. Participants may include: students, scholars, scientists from other institutions, teachers, state or local government personnel, or representatives from private-sector organizations. Employees of Arkansas State University are not eligible to receive participant support.

Unallowable Costs

The intent of participant support is solely to provide financial assistance for participants to attend conferences or defray the cost of participating in training programs.

Unallowable Costs Include:

Procedure

Participant support funding is typically restricted and exempt from F&A, requiring separate accountability from the rest of the award.

Participant support costs should be accounted for in a separate sub-budget as indicated on the Research and Technology Transfer budget spreadsheet, and will be issued a separate fund for expenditures upon award set up.

RTT will monitor proposal budgets to ensure that participant support costs are identified clearly and are appropriate and allowable.

Re-budgeting of participant support costs requires the prior approval of the sponsor. Re-budgeted costs may be subject to F&A if moved into the main grant fund.

Additional Information

See RTT SOP regarding Stipends for questions about stipend payments to participants/students

Sponsored Programs Accounting Participant Support Costs Guidelines: https://www.astate.edu/a/controller/spa/files/participant-support-costs-ug-edition.pdf

 

Subrecipient vs. Contractor

Updated January 11, 2024

Overview

Arkansas State University faculty, staff, or students on the premises of the University conduct most of the work on sponsored agreements. However, it may be necessary to collaborate, partner, or outsource portions of the work to other entities, individual consultants, or others outside of the University.
In these cases, a legal agreement outlining the relationship between the parties and the University is required and may take the form of either a subaward or an agreement with a contractor for purchase of services.

The determination between Subrecipient and Contractor should be made early in the proposal preparation stage to ensure compliance with sponsor guidelines and to minimize impacts to the budget, F&A determination, and grant narrative.

Before entering into a relationship with another entity under a sponsored award in which the other entity will provide goods or services of substantive, programmatic work to Arkansas State University as the prime recipient of funding, a determination must be made as to the nature of the legal relationship between A-State and the other entity.

This decision is significant in determining the legal agreement required to establish the relationship, the allocation of responsibilities and influences of the third party, and the application of indirect cost rates.

A-State Responsibility

In the case of a subaward, A-State is responsible, as the prime institution, to ensure that the Subrecipient(s) conduct their portion of the research projects in compliance with all applicable terms and conditions of the externally sponsored agreement, and that the project costs incurred by the Subrecipient(s) are reasonable and allowable.

Agreements with contractors for the purchase of services typically do not bind vendors to the full set of sponsor terms and conditions, and are subject to competitive bidding procurement practices, to assure that funds paid to vendors do not exceed fair market value.

Both agreements should have a clear purpose and cost.

Uniform Guidance

200.331 Subrecipient and Contractor Determinations
200.22 Contractor and 200.92 Subaward

Determination Guidelines

Subrecipient

Subawards should have a detailed scope of work and a budget that specifies salary, fringe, supplies, equipment, and other direct costs, as well as appropriate F&A costs consistent with the subrecipient’s indirect cost rate. Terms and conditions from the prime agreement are typically imposed on the subrecipient to the same degree that they are imposed on A-State as the prime recipient.

Subrecipient Approval and Negotiation

To establish a subaward with an outside institution, the following must be received by Research and Technology Transfer via the appropriate institutional official at the subrecipient Institution 10 business days before the submission of a proposal:

    1. A letter of intent from the collaborating institution from the appropriate institutional official.
    2. The signed Subrecipient Questionnaire form (to be issued by A-State to the collaborating Institution).
    3. Scope of work
    4. Approved budget
    5. Approved budget justification
    6. Other documents as required by the sponsoring agency

Subawards must be reviewed and negotiated by Research and Technology Transfer.

Contractor

It is the responsibility of the PI to determine whether the price is competitive and reasonable for agreements with both subrecipients and contractors. In either case, however, the agreed-upon cost is not relevant in determining whether the relationship is that of a Subrecipient or Contractor. It is required by federal grant terms and conditions and by good business practices that competitive bids are sought for goods and services from multiple vendors, whenever possible and when the cost exceeds $10,000. Sole-source contractor relationships may be prohibited by the conditions of the prime award, and if allowed, are typically subject to specific conditions and procedural requirements. Procurement Services guidelines can be found here: https://www.astate.edu/a/procurement/index.dot

Contractor Agreement Approval

Once it is determined that the nature of the relationship between A-State, as the prime award recipient, and the entity involved in providing goods or services is a true contractor agreement, the relationship should be treated as that of purchaser and contractor. A-State Procurement Services is the sole purchasing authority of the University. Please consult with Procurement Services before entering into any agreement with a Contractor.

The office of Sponsored Programs Accounting ensures compliance with all procurement practices on externally sponsored agreements, and monitors the reasonability, allocability, and allowability of the contractor costs.

Responsibilities

PIs and RTT work together to determine the appropriate determination of Subrecipient or Contractor during the pre-award stage. Should A-State be awarded, the Director of Contracts and Agreements within Research and Technology Transfer will work with General Counsel to draft an agreement with the subrecipient. PIs are not authorized to issue agreements between the University and other entities.

After an agreement has been awarded and handed off from RTT, if modifications are needed, the Office of Sponsored Programs Accounting will aid in the determination of Subrecipient or Contractor, as well as the allowability to establish these relationships in the post-award phase of the agreement.

Definitions

Contractor: an entity that receives a contract. A contract is a legal instrument by which a non-federal entity purchase property or services needed to carry out the project or program under a federal award (UG 200.22, 200.23)

Subrecipient: a non-federal entity that receives a subaward from a pass-through entity to carry out a part of a federal program; but does not include an individual that is a beneficiary of such program. A Subrecipient may also be a recipient of other federal awards directly from a federal awarding agency (UG 200.93)

RTT Proposal Stage Process

  1. Once receiving notification from the PI that a subaward/contractor will be utilized in the proposal, the proposal specialist will issue a checklist to the PI r to make an appropriate determination of Subrecipient vs Contractor.
  2. Once determination has been made, the proposal specialist will read through the RFP and appropriate Federal and Agency guidelines to determine the allowability of the Subrecipient or Contractor.
  3. If it is determined that a contractor will be used, the proposal specialist will request a justification in writing from the PI as to the appropriateness and reasonability of the contractor's services.
  4. If it is determined that a Subrecipient relationship will be established, the proposal specialist will request the contact information of the outside entity’s sponsored programs office to request/issue the following information:
    1. A letter of intent from the collaborating institution from the appropriate institutional official.
    2. The signed Subrecipient Questionnaire form (to be issued by A-State to the collaborating Institution).
    3. Scope of work
    4. Approved budget
    5. Approved budget justification
    6. Other documents as required by the sponsoring agency
  5. All information must be received by the appropriate institutional official and must not be accepted from the collaborating institution’s Co-PI to ensure all work has been reviewed and approved by the appropriate officials
  6. Once all documents have been received, the proposal specialist will review the contents for compliance with the RFP, Agency Guidelines, and Federal regulations.
  7. As appropriate, the proposal specialist will submit all approved award documents of the Subrecipient with the prime proposal.
  8. Deviations from these procedures should be approved in writing by the Executive Director for Research or the Vice Provost of Research, Innovation, and Discovery.