Georgetown College and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences are dedicated to fostering graduate education and research in the Sciences on the Main Campus.  In response to the projected growth in the Sciences, a 50% increase in the number of ordinary faculty and a new building to complement a reinvented Reiss, the College and the Graduate School have partnered to consolidate the sponsored research administration functions of the Main Campus Science Departments, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Psychology, into a Science Research Administration Service Center.

The Service Center represents a more evolved model for research administration that will better address the continuous challenges presented by sponsored research, especially with an accelerated growth in sponsored research well above our current capacity. This model is based on developing, over a three year period, a life-cycle team that will administer grants from “cradle to grave.” This team will be composed of both post-award (Phase I) and pre-award (Phase III) specialists that will be on the same team and will work to support a common customer, the principal investigator. In this model, both the pre-award and post-award specialists will work in the same physical location, use the same record retention systems, report to the same person, have the same client portfolios and will be jointly responsible for the same set of deliverables. This presents a model where both pre- and post-award specialists can meet with the principal investigator together to resolve any grants management issues.

To address the changing needs of the Science faculty as Georgetown grows its Science infrastructure, this model will be implemented in three phases that correspond with this growth. Phase I will address the immediate issues with the current sponsored research administration at the departmental level by consolidating the management of Science sponsored agreements on September 3, 2007. Phase II will involve expanding the post-award services of Phase I in response to the increase in the number of faculty members, the growth in the number, amount, and complexity of the Science Departments’ sponsored agreements and with the construction of the new Science building. Phase II is expected to be implemented at the start of Fiscal Year 2010 on July 1, 2009. Phase III will be complete the migration to a life-cycle centered grant management model through the addition of pre-award services, and will implemented in Fiscal Year 2011 on July 1, 2010.