Awards and Projects
The Division of Research provides a wide range of services to assist principal investigators as they manage their research awards. These services include assistance with setting up a new project, managing a project through its lifecycle, and closing out a project.
Find Assistance
Key services are divided between Sponsored Research Services and the contract offices for members of The Texas A&M University System.
Sponsored Research Services
Contact SRS for support with contracts and subcontracts with federal, state, non-profit or industry partners involving Texas A&M University, the Health Science Center or the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, as well as for certifications, assurances and contract amendments.
Contract Offices
Contact your System Member’s contract office for help with contracts with industry or commodity sponsors; outgoing subcontracts (excluding the Texas A&M Transportation Institute); unfunded memoranda of understanding; non-disclosure agreements; material transfer agreements; and gifts or contributions.
Starting a Project
with Sponsored Research Services (SRS)SRS offers research administration services to The Texas A&M University System members headquartered in Brazos County, as well as the Texas A&M Galveston and Texas A&M Qatar campuses. In addition, SRS supports pre-award or post-award services for other campuses based on agreements with the individual institutions.
Researcher Guidebook for Sponsored Projects
Principal investigators are responsible for ensuring compliance with university, system and federal policies. This guidebook highlights the support Sponsored Research Services provides throughout the sponsored project lifecycle.
SRS provides pre-award and post-award support to certain Texas A&M System members, helping faculty secure funding and ensuring compliance with research requirements.
The Award and Account Set-up and Expediting Team creates sponsored-project accounts and ensures compliance with sponsor and system requirements during award establishment.
These guidelines define roles such as principal investigator and co-principal investigator, and processes for establishing fiscal authority and credit allocation among departments and colleges.
Non-Sponsored Agreements
System members oversee the following agreements: affiliation, collaboration, consortium, data use/data transfer, material transfer, memorandums of understanding, non-disclosure and teaming.
An NDA is a legal agreement which defines information that the parties wish to protect from dissemination and outlines restrictions on its use.
An MTA is a legal contract to document the transfer of physical material between Texas A&M and academic, non-profit, or industrial organizations.
A DTUA is a contractual document used for the transfer of data that has been developed by an institution, nonprofit organization, government, or private industry, where the data is nonpublic or is otherwise subject to some restrictions on its use.
Collaboration Agreements set out expectations, terms, and requirements that protect the interests of the investigators and the participating organizations.
Research Compliance
Managing a Project
SRS supports faculty, sponsors and System members by managing externally funded programs, ensuring effective oversight from establishment to closeout, assisting with financial adjustments, maintaining compliance with policies and regulations, and guiding projects to successful completion within budget and timelines.
ANSRS4U
Answers for YouTexas A&M Sponsored Research Services (SRS) and the Division of Research is excited to announce that we will be beginning a series of monthly informational sessions. The sessions are titled AnSRS4U – Answers for You.
Contract negotiators protect the interests of the Texas A&M System while assessing the risks and impacts of proposed agreement terms on researchers, students, System members and sub-recipients.
SRS supports collaborative work between principal investigators and their domestic and international partners with a dedicated subaward team of contract negotiators and a subrecipient monitoring group.
This refers to the part of a project or program cost that the sponsor does not reimburse, reflecting the university’s commitment.
SRS provides standard forms for many routine business transactions, decisions and approvals.
Project administrators assist principal investigators by ensuring expense allowability, managing budget modifications, monitoring account balances, tracking agreement end-dates and initiating the close-out process, while SRS handles final invoicing, invention reporting and financial reporting, freeing investigators to submit required technical reports.
Sponsored-research projects require compliance with reporting responsibilities, including technical reports, invention disclosures, equipment inventories, financial reports and use of the NIH Research Performance Progress Report system.
Texas A&M Innovation uses a comprehensive process to manage intellectual property from across The Texas A&M University System; including engaging with the creators, forming protection strategies, conducting market research and implementing commercialization plans.
Research Effort
Research Titles and Staffing
Texas A&M provides a structured career ladder for research positions, detailing titles, qualifications, pay grades and delegated authority for hiring and compensation decisions, with deans authorized to approve salaries up to specified limits and higher amounts requiring additional approvals.
Anyone working on federal, state of Texas or certain other non-federal sponsored projects or activities—whether compensated directly by the project or not—must certify their effort. Exempt employees use the web-based Time and Effort Certification System, while non-exempt employees use TimeTraq.
Faculty members use this form to request approval for summer salary support, ensuring 12 months of salary payment for the fiscal year.
Individuals who do not meet the definition of principal investigator as outlined in Texas A&M University Rule 15.01.01.M5.01, “Principal Investigator Eligibility on Sponsored Agreements,” may request an exception using this form.
Indirect Costs
Current cost rates for Texas A&M System members with long-form agreements for select campuses and short-form agreements for others
Indirect-Cost Distribution
Step-by-step instructions to employ Maestro for locating agreements, distributions and monthly allocations by project
An explanation of how indirect costs are returned to entities across the research enterprise
Close out a Project
This is the final step in a grant or contract’s life cycle (whether cost-reimbursable or fixed-price), requiring the timely submission of all necessary reports, including technical, financial and other documentation to the sponsoring agency.