Administrator & Department Responsibilities

The Post Award Research Administration - Roles & Responsibilities Guide outlines the roles and responsibilities of the Principal Investigator/Account Holder, Department Chair and/or Dean, Department/Faculty Administrators, and Research Finance and Financial Services.

As research funds are awarded to individual Principal Investigators and/or to the institution, the university has a stewardship responsibility to ensure the funds are utilized for the designated purposes for which they are awarded and to comply with corporate and sponsor policies and guidelines.

This shared responsibility is distributed to several stakeholders, including the Principal Investigator, the departments and faculties, Financial Services and other central operations.

It is the responsibility of the Manager (in which is sometimes delegated to a Financial Officer) in each department to ensure Research funds are spent according to Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, Western University and/or externally funded expenditure policies.

It is also expected that Managers/Financial Officers will provide general administrative assistance and financial oversight to ensure that Researchers are aware of these policies and procedures that exist so they can make informed decisions when approving expenditures.

Please note that in a case where multiple policies exist for a similar expenditure, the stricter policy will supersede the other expenditure policies.

Managers / Financial Officers Suggested Tasks:

To help Schulich Managers appropriately manage Research funds within their departments, below are some suggested duties to be completed on a regular basis: