Grant Authorship Guidelines
The following statements are recommended by the UTMB
Scientific Integrity Committee as guidelines related to grant proposal
preparation and management.
Contributors
to a grant proposal may include those with or without faculty status.
These statements apply to those with faculty status, both on and off
campus.
Faculty contributors are persons who participate in
writing the grant or for whom salary
is requested. The Principal Investigator (PI) is
responsible for negotiating, in advance, how the funds will be budgeted, and, if required, rebudgeted upon award of
the grant.
Possible
budgetary modifications that can be suggested by the granting agency include:
1.
Overall reduction of funds
2.
Reduction
in specific categories
3.
Reduction
in personnel
4.
Reduction
in responsibilities
Under
each of these circumstances, it is the responsibility of the PI to give due
consideration to the spirit of the agreement negotiated in advance.
However, all concerned should realize that the PI bears sole
responsibility for the proper execution of the funded work and must not be
constrained by any prior agreement that is not compatible with the goals of the
grant.
Some
contributors may not be actively involved in the actual preparation of the
proposal or conduction of the research, but make a contribution to the grant that should be recognized. For instance, some contributors may have
conducted pilot studies or written their own grant proposals that contain
similar aims or sections. Material
belonging to one investigator should not be placed in another investigator’s
grant without full knowledge and permission of said investigator.
It
is the responsibility of the PI to keep each faculty contributor and subcontractor informed
about the progress of the proposal including:
1.
Deadlines
for submission
2.
All
potential funding sources
3.
Contributions
that are included in the proposal, such as: preliminary data, methods, figures,
charts, tables, or photographs that come from the contributor’s published work,
dissertations, theses, poster presentations, or unpublished manuscripts or
reports
4.
Final
acceptance, rejection and rebudgeting decisions
All communications with the funding
agency, including the critique, should be shared with the faculty contributor
and the subcontractor. Prior to
discussions with the granting agency, the PI will notify the subcontractor and
faculty contributors and their department chairs concerning changes in budget,
including time and effort.
These
guidelines are designed to lend clarity to the relationships between the PI and
the project contributors.