"Approval Hierarchies for Automated Research Application Review & Approval”: Feedback

MEMORANDUM

TO: Principals, Deans, Academic Directors and Chairs

FROM: Judith Chadwick, Assistant Vice-President
cc: RAISE Project Leadership Group

DATE: 28 March 2012

RE: Approval Hierarchies for Automated Research Application Review &
Approval

Given that time did not permit discussion of this agenda item at the last PDAD&C meeting, I am forwarding the documentation for your review and comment.

I believe that the attached is self-explanatory. Very briefly, through the Research Administration Improvement & Systems Enhancement (RAISE) project, a number of business process improvements are being implemented. This includes, where possible, automation of certain processes to enhance service and to improve transparency and accountability. The first of the major projects to move toward implementation is automation of internal research application review and approval. In order to move forward with this project, resolution of three issues is required:

1. Escalation criteria: Under what circumstances will applications require review and approval above the level of Chair/Director?

2. Extra-departmental units (EDUs): Under the leadership of the Provost’s office, we seek clarification of which categories of EDU are eligible to administer research funds and to identify a clear “one-up” hierarchy for each EDU in cases where approval escalation criteria are met.

3. Approval flows in cases of cross appointments: What is the appropriate approval flow where the proposed administrative unit is other than the PI’s unit or primary appointment?

Our proposals regarding items 1 and 3 are provided in the attached document. Please forward your comments to Judith Chadwick, Assistant-Vice-President, Research Services, judith.chadwick@utoronto.ca, by April 13, 2012. We look forward to hearing from you.

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RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION IMPROVEMENT & SYSTEMS ENHANCEMENT (RAISE)

A Request for Guidance from PDAD&C, March 2012

The Office of the Vice-President Research (OVPR) seeks to firmly establish the University of Toronto as the best practice institution in Canada in the administration of research. This requires state-of-the-art tools and processes to ensure the effective, efficient, complete, accurate and transparent management of research activities. A number of opportunities to enhance business processes through the application of technology have been identified. Collectively these enhancements are referred to as RAISE.

For implementation purposes, these enhancements have been divided into two groups:
1. Group One enhancements are sub-projects of a smaller scale where the goals can be met using existing, in-house systems and technology.

2. Group Two enhancements are sub-projects of a larger size where the goals can be met using a combination of existing technology and new approaches.
A full description of RAISE and the component projects may be found on the OVPR website at http://www.research.utoronto.ca/for-researchers-administrators/project-raise/

The RAISE project charter was signed in June 2010. Since then, major foundation work has been undertaken in team creation, current business process review and understanding, definition of the “to-be” business processes, and system data quality improvement (necessary for any automation). In parallel, highest-priority work has been defined, created, tested and deployed into the real world.

Significant deployments to date include:
• The Research Fund Summary Report – a red-light / green-light type report which allows business officers to easily identify funds which need attention for numerous issues and allows OVPR staff to automatically “close out” completed funds, compressing hours of work into minutes.
• Programs automating the correspondence, and tracking thereof, to principal investigators (PIs) related to human and animal ethics protocols. 18 letter types have been automated, improving auditability and allowing staff time to be reallocated to higher value activities.
• Protecting closed research funds from HR postings (a contract violation) by redirecting such postings to operating funds where issues can subsequently be resolved.
• Automation of overhead postings for research funds (and an new OH report for tracking)

Further deployed mid-sized projects include:
• Field auto-updates -- Ethics Human Protocol initiative (a revision of the existing RIS system to add various validations to improve data quality – necessary for automation of various functions)
• A research overhead (OH) report to allow business officers and OVPR to identify and resolve issues
• Enhancements to 3 other existing reports to allow their use for research-related activities
• Enabling mass uploads of sponsor payments to revenue to allow clean-up of Tri-Council funds

Mid-sized projects currently underway, in OVPR testing, and nearing deployment, include:
• Linking the RIS and the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) systems
• Automating the carry forward of “no post” status on funds at FY end
• Ability for Research Financial Reporting & Analysis to auto-upload sponsor cash receipts files

Larger-scale projects currently underway include three new initiatives to automate and track research-related business processes:
• The Human Protocol On-line Submission project will create an on-line approvals workflow for the PIs and OVPR ethics group.
• The Animal Protocol On-line Submission project will create an on-line approvals workflow for the PIs and OVPR ethics group.
• The RIS Application Attachment (aka “blue form”) project will take a paper-based process related to applications for funding and put it online. All PIs at the university who apply for funding will use this product.

If all goes according to plan, the technical development for these three initiatives should be complete by end of calendar year 2012.

Approval Hierarchies for Automated Research Application Review & Approval

The “Blue Form” project, noted above, is the first of the larger Group 2 projects slated for implementation. In addition to providing the mechanism by which a University approval is obtained, it will provide academic administrators with desktop access to comprehensive research application data on PIs associated with their unit. We are seeking input from PDAD&C on three aspects of the project in particular:

A) To enable cost-effective and reliable automation of the Blue form, uniform internal sign-off requirements are proposed. The proposed escalation rules, beyond the standard requirement for Chair/Director sign-off, are laid out below.

Approval required by:
Dean/Principal* or designate (e.g. Vice-Dean/Vice-Principal*, Research) associated with Administering Unit

Conditions requiring escalation:
• All matching funding initiatives, e.g. CFI
• Proposals requesting teaching release
• Proposals including renovation/construction
• Proposals requiring incremental space
• Proposals to non-Canadian sponsors
• Proposals that deviate from the University’s overhead policy
• Proposals requesting over a threshold amount
• Proposals anticipating increased utility requirements
• Proposals where the Chair/Director is the PI
• Proposals from the Vice-Dean/Vice-Principal will escalate to the Dean/Principal

Approval required by: Provost

Conditions requiring escalation:
• Proposals where the Dean/Principal* is the PI

B) In order to implement this sub-project, clarification on the ability of an EDU to administer research funds is required, as is clarification of the “one-up” Divisional authority for each EDU that is permitted to administer research funds (in order to pursue the above-noted escalation).

C) A third issue relates to the requirements for approval and administration of research where the proposed administrative unit is other than the PI’s unit or primary appointment. The following flow
is proposed:

University approval process where the Administering Unit is not the Unit of Primary Appointment

Approval of Chair/Director of Unit of Primary Appointment Required
• Application flows to Chair/Director of unit of primary appointment for review and approval
o Application rejected – application returned to PI
o Application approved as is
 Application flows to Chair/Director of proposed administrative unit (if different admin unit requested)
• Application rejected – application returned to PI
• Application approved moves forward for approval

NB: Applications escalate to the Dean/Principal (or designate) for approval if one of the criteria outlined above exist, otherwise the application flows to the University Approver. The Dean/Principal (or designate) to whom the application would escalate is determined by the unit administering the research.

For ease of review, information with budgetary/space implications will be presented in summary format to Approvers, who will have the option of reviewing all the information contained in the “Blue Form” as well as the attached research proposal prior to “Approving” or “Rejecting” an application.

The reason for the escalation to the Dean/Principal (or designate) will also be highlighted in the summary.

It has been proposed that Academic Administrators will have access to application information from all faculty members associated with their unit if the appointment is recorded in the faculty member’s HR record irrespective of the unit administering the research.