Compliance with Federal Sponsors’ Disclosure Requirements
OFFICE OF THE DEAN FOR RESEARCH
OFFICE OF THE DEAN OF THE FACULTY
TO: Members of the faculty, professional researchers, specialists, and librarians
FROM: Peter Schiffer, Dean for Research and Vice President for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Gene Jarrett, Dean of the Faculty
Dear Colleagues,
Researchers who receive federal research funding should remember the importance of compliance with federal sponsor disclosure requirements. Princeton strongly supports and encourages scholarly exchanges and collaborations, both domestic and international. As you engage in such collaborations, we urge you to err on the side of completeness: please devote the necessary time to ensure the completion and accuracy of your disclosures in both the proposals and progress reports sent to research sponsors. Incomplete or incorrect disclosures, even if inadvertent, can create significant risk for both the University and the researcher. Researchers have important personal responsibilities in the disclosure process.
We are writing today to ask you to pay special attention to Biosketches; Current and Pending/Other Support forms; and Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources documents. Each time you submit these to a federal sponsor, you must confirm the information as current and accurate, and you must follow appropriate guidance for their completion. As a reminder, you should disclose:
- All of your domestic and foreign appointments, activities and affiliations, whether paid or unpaid.
- Financial and in-kind resources that support your research. They include all forms of external support as well as internal funds allocated for specific projects. They also include work done by people who are paid from sources outside the University (e.g., students, postdocs and visitors who have their own support) and external funding received directly by members of your lab.
The precise requirements and formats of disclosures will likely continue to vary by solicitation and funding agency and to change over time. Additional resources and guidance regarding disclosure integrity may be found on ORPA’s website.
Should you have any questions regarding the preparation of proposals or progress reports, please contact your department/center grants manager or equivalent or Grant and Contract Administrator in the Office of Research and Project Administration. All of us involved in the administration of research funding encourage you to reach out — we will be happy to help.
Sincerely,
Peter and Gene