Summary

The Research Administration Associate will provide Grants Administration support in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases. Primary responsibilities will include the financial management activities of grants in pre-award areas: submissions requirements (BCM and the funding institution such as the NIH, CDC and others), budget creation, cost assessment, account creation, sub-award management, resource allocation, and internal and external reporting requirements. The Research Administration Associate should be comfortable working and navigating federal (NIH, CDC HRSA, US Department of Defense) application process and compliance systems. 

Employees with CRA certification are eligible for certification pay.

This position is eligible for a hybrid work schedule.

Job Duties

• Responsible for the pre-award financial management activities of grants, managing the full award life cycle, from application to award closeout.
• Prepares budget justifications, creates budget spreadsheets, and completes other budget forms for submission and reporting. Provides budget guidance and input to principal investigators.
• Provides guidance to research faculty, employees, and learners for proposal development and submissions by interpreting granting agency guidelines and instructions.
• Negotiates industry-sponsored contracts, including clinical trial agreements, sponsored research agreements, and material transfer agreements.
• Leads with BCM Grants and Contract and Sponsored Programs Office for pre-award processes.
• Communicates with BCM Accounting, Sponsored Programs, Grants & Contracts Office, and collaborating institutions to ensure awards and independent consultant agreements are established and executed in a timely manner.  
• Maintains Data of active, pending, and closed grants for Pediatrics Infectious Diseases: number of submissions, number of awards, faculty effort and other statistics related to grant reporting.
• Assists with maintaining Cost/Effort allocations in the BCM Effort Reporting System/PEPT for research faculty, employees, and learners.
• Submits Payroll Cost Transfer requests for research faculty, employees, and learners.
• Assists with leading the development and continuous improvement of the grants management process for the Division of Infectious Diseases.
• Prepares financial reporting and provides feedback to Infectious Diseases leadership and Investigators as directed.  
• Ensures compliance with federal, sponsor, and institutional policies and guidelines and serves as a liaison between faculty, employees, learners, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, and Sponsors.
• Assists and completes the BCM annual budget for their assigned division’s research activities and programs that includes budget entries related to research personnel PI’s and staff, distribution (PEPT), F&A budget calculations, IDC, and other related budget entries and calculation.
• Supports 40+ Infectious Diseases faculty, learners and research staff.  
• Works on Pre-award management for the Division of Infectious Diseases. Annual submission count of approximately 30-50 applications per year.  Annual award amounts average of $3-$5 million dollars per year.  Applications are multi-site applications averaging 3-partnering institutions/sub-awards. Partnering Institutions may be international, which are very complex due to different IRB and government compliance requirements. 
• Works with BCM’s Biomedical Research and Assurance Information Network (BRAIN), IRB, RCOI, PEPT and other BCM compliance systems.  
• Reports through the Pediatrics Center for Research Advancement and Division leadership for key deliverables.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree.  Certified Research Administrator certification through the Research Administrators Certification Council (RACC) may substitute for the degree requirement.
• Two years of relevant experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in grant application development, budgeting, and/or grant financial management. 
• Prior experience working in an academic research setting strongly desired.
• Working knowledge of sponsor application submission systems, such as ASSIST, Workspace, and Proposal, Compliance systems.
• Strong attention to detail, project management skills, and time management. Able to work independently and multi-task.