University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign logoOffice of Sponsored Programs & Research Administration


FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER

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The Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Administration (OSPRA) is a unit under the Office of Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) with a dotted line of authority to the Office of Business and Financial Services (OBFS). OSPRA interacts with faculty, students, department business staff, University administration, and external sponsor program officers and award negotiators to provide service and support to the University's missions of instruction, research, public service, and economic development. 

OSPRA is comprised of three divisions: Proposal, Award, and Subaward.

The Proposal Division is responsible for reviewing and approving the requests for external funding prepared and submitted by the campus community to Federal, State, and Private Sponsors. The Staff reviews proposals for budget accuracy, interprets regulation and proposal guidelines, provides training where necessary, and acts as a liaison with sponsor officials to respond to questions and requests for additional documentation to support award issuance.

The Award Division is responsible for negotiating terms and conditions of awards resulting from the submission of requests for funding and other associated no-dollar agreements. The staff responds to agreements provided by the sponsor and also draft agreements in the absence of sponsor provided documents. The Staff interacts with University Counsel and the Office of Technology Management (OTM) with regard to exceptions to standard language and Intellectual Property.

The Subaward Division is responsible for issuing agreements to lower tier sub-recipients under the prime awards the University receives from external sponsors. The Staff interprets the wide variety of terms and conditions to determine appropriate flowdown language from the prime agreement dependent upon the type of sub-recipient, e.g. institution of higher education, not-for-profit, or commercial concern. They also interact with Counsel and OTM to ensure appropriate exceptions to standard language and Intellectual Property terms have been addressed.

Do you want access to view/track your proposals and award documents on-line via UIeRA? Register now! Send your email request to uierahelp@uillinois.edu. If you already have access to UI eRA, here are the job aids to assist. For more information regarding the University of Illinois' electronic grants management system, click here.