MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95
For fiscal year 1995, the total volume of sponsored research performed on
campus was $361,688,791. This represents an increase of .05 percent over
fiscal 1994 volume of $359,674,254. The breakdown by sponsor is shown in the
table below.
Federally funded research volume increase by 1.0 percent over 1994. Department
of Defense funding was down by 10.3 percent (following a decrease the previous
year of 7.7 percent) and National Science Foundation funding by 2.5 percent.
Increases included the Department of Health and Human Services at 1.5 percent,
the Department of Energy by 6.2 percent, and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration by 10 percent.
Of the non-Federal sponsors, industrial funding decreased by 5.1 percent,
following a decrease of 4.8 percent in the previous year. However, support
from private foundations and other non-profit sponsors increased this year by
11.7 percent, following a 7.3 percent decrease in 1994. It should be noted
that sponsorship characterized as non-Federal may, nonetheless, involve Federal
funds when MIT receives a subaward from an industrial or non-profit sponsor
which has a grant, cooperative agreement, or contract from the Federal
government.
CAMPUS RESEARCH VOLUME BY SPONSOR - 1988-1995
(in thousands of dollars)
FEDERAL 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
DHHS $ 49,070 52,565 57,915 59,025 60,177 64,882 60,192 61,066
DOE $ 55,629 54,045 61,098 60,625 57,355 57,325 63,180 67,114
DOD $ 46,836 47,921 51,158 49,104 48,539 66,769 61,601 55,866
NSF $ 39,177 38,962 38,093 37,953 36,574 38,008 39,574 38,564
NASA $ 12,509 15,256 18,469 22,755 25,889 32,324 37,449 41,291
Other $ 7,283 6,713 7,430 8,647 9,773 8,899 8,722 9,641
Subtotal $ 210,504 215,462 234,163 238,109 238,307 268,206 270,718 273,542
NON-FEDERAL
Industry $ 35,315 41,937 46,223 48,360 53,578 62,068 59,117 56,120
Nonprofit $ 19,779 23,602 25,220 23,751 24,920 25,593 23,666 26,430
Other $ 3,796 4,727 5,053 5,599 5,461 5,487 6,173 5,597
Subtotal $ 58,890 70,266 76,496 77,710 83,959 93,148 88,956 88,147
______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
TOTAL $ 269,394 285,728 310,660 315,819 322,267 361,354 359,674 361,689
Activities in the Office of Sponsored Programs during 1994-1995 were impacted
in two distinct arenas: externally by ongoing policy issues related to federal
funding of research and internally by the appointment of a new director and
reorganizations and new emphases on computerization and automation within the
office. Each of these is described below:
In February, 1995 another set of proposed revisions to OMB Circular A-21, the
Federal cost principles applicable to universities, were issued. If adopted,
these revisions will further constrain the ability of institutions to fully
recover the costs of performing research for the federal government.
As discussed last year, a troublesome issue still exists related to
departmental administration expenses. Despite the fact that the Office of
Management and Budget issued a formal interpretation of the section of A-21
which had restricted direct charging administrative and clerical expenses to
federal research awards, some federal agencies have restricted or eliminated
secretarial and administrative support from federal awards. This issue is
continuing to be addressed by OSP and by Washington-based organizations such as
the Council on Governmental Relations.
As noted in last year's report, OMB has reached the decision that MIT and three
other major research universities will not be permitted to continue charging
the tuition of graduate student research assistants to the employee benefit
pool but will be required to treat it as a direct cost to the individual
research projects on which they are employed. The implementing regulation,
which appear in OMB Circular A-21, provide a transition period which will
result in MIT's treating tuition as a direct charge for these appointments
beginning in FY 99. The problem is compounded now for NIH awards because that
agency is now restricting graduate student compensation (defined as salary plus
employee benefits plus tuition charges) to a "reasonable" level, defined as
equivalent to the entry level compensation (defined as salary plus employee
benefits) of a first year postdoctoral appointee in the department of the RA.
MIT and other institutions are currently urging NIH to reconsider these
restrictions.
Over the past year, MIT has developed policy and procedures to implement the
disclosure and review requirements of the National Science Foundation and the
Public Health Service with regard to possible investigator conflict of interest
on research projects. NSF has delayed its implementation until October 1, 1995
so that they and PHS can issue complementary (if not identical) policies and
procedures.
Last year's report identified the status of pending legislation which would
negate a decision by the National Institute of Standards and Technology that
universities could not own patents resulting from research conducted under the
Advanced Technology Program. That legislation was not passed and there have
been efforts to identify another vehicle in which to reaffirm the policy that
universities were permitted to retain ownership of inventions resulting from
Federally funded research, subject to certain requirements in the public
interest.
Significant effort has been devoted toward streamlining some internal processes
related to the management of research awards at the Institute which have
provided relief to schools, labs, and departments, as well as to central
administrative offices. For example, OSP now allows multi-year awards from NIH
, DOE, and AFOSR to be established in single account numbers for the life of
the award, rather than requiring the establishment of individual accounts each
year. More recently, we have provided additional flexibilities to principal
investigators in the use of federal research grant funds by relaxing many of
the internal approvals previously required. We are now in the process of
streamlining the Research Proposal Summary form, to reduce the items on the
form and make the remaining items more useful.
The major internal effort of the office this year has been the initial
development of an OSP database to capture award and proposal information in a
computerized database. This will permit more effective and efficient
management of awards by OSP staff, will permit Institute personnel to access
the database, and will provide the capability to produce standard and custom
reports quickly and independently. Release 1 (the awards database) is
scheduled for implementation in September 1995, followed by Release 2 (proposal
database) a year later.
OSP opened its home page on the WWW in February, 1995. One exciting aspect of
our Web page is the ability of researchers at the Institute to access easily
federal information sources for proposal announcements, forms, and guidelines.
Another is the incorporation in the home page of updated information, such as
IDC and EB rates, for the Institute.
Complimentary to these efforts for internal automation, MIT committed to
participating in two federal initiatives to develop and submit the
administrative portion of selected research proposals to NSF, ONR, NIH, DOE,
AFOSR, ARO, and ARMAA electronically. Initial development has proceeded and
full-scale testing is scheduled for 1996.
We acknowledge with gratitude the retirement of two long-term staff members,
Dave Harrigan and Paul Quinn, who have contributed so much to OSP and to the
Institute.
Julie T. Norris
MIT
Reports to the President 1994-95