Policies and Specified Guidance
Faculty should be familiar with several key University Policies concerning research, including policies on:
Managing Your Sponsored Research
Award Negotiation & Acceptance
Awards are received by the University of Maryland on behalf of the Principal Investigator (PI). While the PI assumes the responsibility for financial oversight and completion of the work, the University remains legally responsible for the award. Therefore, all awards must conform to University policy and procedure.
Acceptance of an award requires a number of steps:
Preparing Your Proposal
Moving Through University Channels - From Faculty to the Sponsor
The information on this page is available in more detail in the Sponsored Research Handbook.
Finding Funding
An excellent way to identify potential sponsors is to network with faculty, industry representatives, and government agency personnel. In addition, the VPR has made SPINPlus available to faculty and staff to locate potential funding sources. Links to these resources and more can be found on Locating Funding page.
What is ORA?
The Office of Research Administration (ORA) provides support to faculty for all aspects of extramural funding from pre-award through closeout activities. We provide the following services to the UM faculty community:
Faculty Guide
Welcome to the University of Maryland!
We hope this guide will be of use to you as you navigate the sponsored research protocols and procedures at the University of Maryland.
To ease the understanding of the whole proposal lifecycle, we have divided it into 6 sections that take you through the entire process. Upon completion of these sections, we would strongly recommend that you go through our Proposal Checklist to ensure you have everything in place to get started.
Waiver Requests
It is the policy that the budget in each proposal (including continuation or supplemental proposals) for sponsored research or educational service include all costs, direct and Indirect Costs. When a faculty or staff member feels there is an extraordinary justification to budget an indirect cost rate at less than the University rate in effect at the time, a waiver may be requested.
Facilities & Administrative Rates FAQ’s
Frequently Asked Questions
Don’t see your question? Ask your Contract Administrator. Questions for future FAQ’s can be submitted to: oraweb@umd.edu
Equipment Fabrication
Original memo regarding Indirect Costs application to E.F. dated March 7, 2001 effective to 06/30/18
Computer Equipment
An internal waiver of Indirect Costs on computer equipment costing between $500 and $4,999 was in place during the period of February 19, 1999 to December 31, 2014. As of 1/1/2015, the waiver is no longer in effect on all new proposals.
Notice to rescind the Computer Equipment waiver
Original memo regarding Indirect Costs application to Computer Equipment dated February 18, 1999