 And then we'll let you guys do official introductions of the long event here and all that good stuff. And I really appreciate their willingness to do this for us today because we really need an opportunity to understand that different departments function a little bit differently and what can we learn from each other and how can we get some tips from that. The neat thing is that these guys all work in areas where they serve a unit. Okay, and I'll tell you about this in a second. I work in an area where there is no one doing what they do. Okay? You too? Okay, so we're all after you guys. But the least we could do is hear how they structure these things and how they function. And maybe we pick up a few tips from it and maybe it does encourage us to get one of them in our offices. So with that, I'll let you do an official introduction of yourself and share your tips with us. Stand because I'm short. I'm Myrna Freed. I'm from the Carrington Research Extension Center and I've been at Carrington since 1999. I'm Jan Ulrich. I work in the Department of Plant Pathology and also with the School of Natural Resource Sciences. And I have worked with research for 10 years. I'm Julie Nash and I'm an animal sciences. I've been at NDSU since 2001. And for most of that time I've been with animal sciences. Part of that time I left and worked with the FORA program. So I got to see it on the other side of actually working with a grant that was funded and administering that. So I've seen it from a couple of different views now. Take it away guys. Who ever wants to go first? Well I can start out with, as far as, I worked in SPA previously. So now for me coming to the departmental level, it is really an eye opener. You know it is because you, I thought when I first moved it would be a real smooth transition. But it's amazing to me the things that are, the things that I never thought of by myself working in SPA. I guess just things I never encountered. But to begin with I guess like everybody says, time is huge. We need to start everything in a very timely, timely fashion. Unfortunate I have phenomenal faculty I work with. They have been excellent to get me their proposals or at least part of their proposals in advance so that I can get the PTF started. I can get their budgets reviewed. Look at their justification along with their budgets. And get a small like abstract or the little you know the scope of work of what they're going to do with their objectives. For me to get that part in advance and I really, really have always pushed for the seven days. You know it depends on the type of grant we're looking at. We're looking at agrants.gov. I had a faculty that seriously started his grant three months in advance. And he needed the three months. I mean that was his whole technical writing, everything. But it really takes the pressure off of everybody. You know because we had the time to pass it on to you know beyond our departmental signatures. We send it over to ag budget and it gets reviewed there and then we send it on to SPA. It gets reviewed there. And they need time to submit that proposal and not one minute before it's due. So you know the seven to ten days is definitely a necessity. I would say for me to review and prepare a budget justification isn't going to take me three days. But if you run into questions or if we send it on over to ag or to SPA, questions can come back again. You know so time to me is huge. So that's what I'll start with and let somebody else talk a little bit here. Well I think from my perspective too, I know all your kids don't have someone like us in your department. So I've always seen my role as trying to be a tool for the faculty member to be able to work more on the science part of their grant. So I can take away and help with the other parts making sure that they're including everything in the grant that they need. I'm looking at guidelines and policies and that. I know a lot of what we're talking about today is budgets and how to get it through the process. But it's only one little aspect of the whole grant proposal. So I know for you guys there's so many more pieces. And some of those forms can be very labor intensive, especially grants.gov because it's not real user friendly some days. Especially if you have a lot of people on your grant. There's a lot of different things that need to be changed. And so even one little minute change which might not seem much to someone else. It's just tiny change. It's like yes but now I have to change it in five different places. And unfortunately you guys all have to do that. I've taken that away from some of the faculty members so they don't have to worry about that. But I think one thing that's good about the discussion is to throw it out there that there are many things that affect the whole grant process. And even though I might be in your department doesn't mean I'm not open to you calling and asking for have you ever done one of these? How do I do this? This isn't working in the form. I definitely am never going to say I can't help you or not in my department. I won't put your grant proposal together for you. But I definitely am open to helping anyone that has questions about new proposals they're doing and things like that too. The budgets are just one part of that. The thing about the budget is it's very fluid depending on what after it goes through the review process at the external agency. They may come back and say we're only going to fund part of it or it's only going to be this much this year and it changes every year. And so I know we focus a lot on that. And it does have to mesh with what your research is. And in support and we definitely want to make sure you have enough money in your budget to do what you want to do. And that's kind of what I see my role when I'm reviewing someone's grant is to make sure they're asking for everything they might need. I agree with Julie that we spend a lot of time on the budgets but that's because that's what Spa wants to look at. And they rely on you to do the science correctly because that's what you are your scientist. So they rely on you to do that correctly and that's why we're to help with the budgets and that's what they really care about. So I know in my department people get irritated probably with me because I'm like well I don't care about the rest just bring me the budget so that I can help you start. And it's not that I don't care about the other stuff but that's what sponsored programs is going to look at. And it's not always a matter of what's going to happen after you're awarded it as well. And I know in some instances we've had problems with well I don't like the way that looks or that doesn't sound like how I'd like it to sound. And part of that could be because if you are awarded the grant and you want to pay for something that doesn't maybe look appropriate you could get yourself in trouble later on. So while it might not be disallowed in the grant that doesn't mean it's allowed either. And so you have to watch those kinds of things. You know what I think was in your Marie said that read the instructions and that's what I would encourage everybody to do first is read the instructions all the way through. Because there and so much of it is probably Greek to you because it is to me sometimes too. You know they talk about indirect costs and you can only use 10% indirect costs and and but every agency and every grant is different. And so you have to read all the way through and sometimes I mean I know the RFPs are 40 pages long but you have to read all the way through to find that. Yeah NDSU wants me to use a match percent of 46% but the sponsor is only going to allow me to use 20% and that might be on page 36. So it's just important to read everything ahead of time and and try and have and that's why the time issue is a big thing too. Sometimes it takes a long time to read through that. So if we have people bringing us something that is due in three days and the RFP is 40 pages long. I mean we feel that that's our responsibility to read through that and know what your requirements are too. And that takes time and and then from my perspective I call on because half the time I don't understand. I know it says 10% but how does that work? Is it 10% of total direct costs or is it 10% of modified total direct costs? You know all those things are different but that's why you have to read and ask questions. We did want to open it up so that if anybody had any specific questions or some experiences recently that you wanted to process we'd have that opportunity. So I'm just going to pause a minute and see if anyone's got a question or example they'd like to bring up. So do you have researchers who, they're out in the field and they decide that maybe the budgets that they put together, if they've received the grant they've now discovered they need to purchase some material that are different than what was written up in the budget transmittal form. So if we need to do budget revisions, do you help with some of those things? Or is that something that you have the BI do? If you need to do paperwork to do budget revisions, do you help with some of that stuff? Torban? Yes. In our department, in my departments I would help. If there's rebudgeting I would help at least start the process. And then contact sponsored programs and Marie would be the one then to review the original budget to what we're changing it to. So yes, the initial process would start at the departmental level and then be processed on to sponsored programs. But some of it doesn't need to go through. Some of it's allowable under different grads. It depends on what grant you have because some movement within your budget is allowable depending on the type of funding it is. And so I work with my account techs a lot or we call grants and contracts or whatever just to make sure that if they are going to do something or need something different, whether it is necessary to get approvals and then if we do need those approvals, yeah, then we work through the process. So you help with PIs with that process? If they want, yeah. Some are, you know, more comfortable doing it themselves. Some would like some assistance and that's fine, you know, it's whatever their comfort level is. I feel like we might be a little out of touch with what you all do because, I mean, in my office I do maybe two or three extension type grants and the rest are researched. And so maybe we're looking at different animals too. And I know that the one extension grant I do for Mary's program, it's a bugger, it's a bear. And so if that's what you're all facing every time, I can see how you get frustrated because it's taken me years and only can attest to this to feel like I have a handle on it and it doesn't take long to not have a handle on it pretty quickly. I mean, honestly. And so most of your stuff is probably in the same vein as that. You know, hers is a North Dakota Department of Health program, but it's federal money. And so if you're getting federal money, there's lots of problems. I think the extension too, there's different, probably different needs than what the research meaning. Like for example, there's a survey. Sometimes there are, like on the budget, there could be something that there's going to be a gift card given to the participants of this survey. Or, you know, there's a lot of different items like that to help fill in. I don't know, I can't think of other. But I always think of that as a gift card or you can't say anything. Sometimes, like even if they're using someone's facilities for doing site demonstrations and that, it's a different process or a different way of thinking about how you budget for it. Did somebody mention a gift card? What? Gift card. Did you need one? I would never, ever let my people put that in a grant. Ever. Because I wouldn't do it. But it is a lot. Yeah, see, and that's why I say, you know, maybe I'm just not attached with what you're doing. I mean, I would be like, no one can do that. It does depend upon the grant. Yes. Perfect. I guess I really appreciate the fact that you acknowledged with this group that there are a lot of differences. And everybody in here would have a different story. And there are just so many unique differences. And what that should say to all of us is that patience is a virtue. We just really need a lot of patience sometimes when we're trying to work through these things. It takes extra energy. And I have listened to people say to me, I don't know why I bother doing this. I'm so sick and tired of this. It's too hard, all those sorts of things. Well, part of the reason we're here today is to try to begin to share more information that will help this process be less stressful for us. And yeah, we'd all like one of you guys in our offices. We probably aren't going to get that tomorrow. But we do know that there are people out here who have worked on these things. And we can ask for opinions and ask for alternative ideas. That's why I wanted you to see their faces, meet them, visit with them afterwards. I at one time said to them, you know, that if there's a process or any tips that they use that I might be able to implement without carrying someone just in my unit. Maybe I can gather some of that information. That's what I'm here listening for today. I don't have the funds to hire someone like this, but I do have the capacity to try to figure out a couple tips, a couple things that might be able to save us a few headaches. So that's our purpose. The one thing to add to that that I would like to acknowledge is what you all are doing through those grant proposals, whether it's research or extension, is so core to what we do at NDSU. And so I always think of it as a team effort. Whenever one of my faculty gets a grant, I think I celebrate as much as they do. Because I mean this is really core to the bringing new knowledge and new services and new skills, whether it's on campus or off campus. And I'm here to help them make that a reality and continue to grow as a university. So I'm always thinking about the bigger picture of where it brings us. And that's why I say reaching out, other departments, anywhere, any way that I can help someone else to kind of find their way through that process or hook them up with other faculty members that may have the expertise that they need. Anything like that that just kind of starts the conversation because I think we have to keep in mind that we are a team in a different way. And that I'm really here to support all of you. So that's how I always look at it. That's our main, for any of us, that's our main purpose here is to give support, try and help. I guess I, as I work with the forums, the comments relating to most of them being related to research, I guess kind of get home. It seems like all the forums, all the categories, everything in generic are read before research. And trying to find categories that would be more appropriate for the kinds of extension education that I'm trying to support with the grant is always challenging. So if there's any ideas as to what would be more appropriate, and then it talks about publishing journal articles. It doesn't talk about printing extension publications or those kind of things. And any assistance that we can have in figuring out what would be the purpose behind it would be helpful to see? I'll quickly address what I think as far as that goes. Part of it is looking at the categories of expenses after, how you spend it afterwards, is going to determine what category you should put it in to begin with. Because, you know, you say publication costs. Well, publication costs have a certain account code when you pay a publication bill. There's a code in counting where publication cost is six, two, three, something, something, something. But printing is five, four, two, oh, one, five. Well, those are different budget categories. So those can help you determine which category to put that in when you're writing the grant. And that's why I say sometimes, you know, okay, gift cards may be allowable in some instances, but it depends on what category that's coming out of once it's actually paid. Would you agree with that? But I think the point of, you know, like what he's saying, so, okay, that's a printing cost and not a publication cost. Well, the form we wrote doesn't have a printing cost line. So where am I supposed to put that on the form? That's the point you're bringing up. If you're going to reproduce publications to hand out, is that a publication cost or is that a printing cost? Is a printing cost where do I put it? And how do I know as it has? And again, I'm not supportive of them. We don't have grant people in our department to lean on. So I speed that on the dohona. Say where do I speed this? She'll tell you where. But there are differences, but I, as the PI for this, don't understand that background. Unless you've done this a couple of times and flipped over before and say, oh, you can't do it that way, you know, you don't know. And even if you've done it a few times, there's still plenty of changes. Well, we're going to talk about it. I have an upgrade here. I forget. So how, well, let's just ask where you guys would like printing costs to fall instead of publication costs. Is that other expenses or is it publications? And then once it gets to grants and contracts, they're going to have to separate it out. What I look at is a little more general because it's all in the operating category. I look at salaries, operating, equipment. So if you've got it on this budget that you're going to send to me, if you've got it within that operating category, I guess I don't care if it's printing or publications. It's operating. Now, I think maybe you go more into the budget forms. A bit more. There again, it depends on the budget form that you're using as well. If you're using the NDSU budget forms compared to the grants.gov, the budget forms. And there isn't always just one correct answer. There may be, and when it comes to classifying expenditures, there's degrees of correctness. For instance, there are publication costs on the grants.gov budget form. That's meant for recovery journals or some other printed material that's meant to publish the results of what you've done. Now, that can be an extension bulletin. But if you're printing material to use for educational purposes for your workshop, it really doesn't belong there. If it gets in there, there again, I don't, that's not a huge issue to me if you put all your printing under publication. Technically it's not 100% correct, but that's kind of, that's getting down into the mini-grids stuff and everything else is correct. That's what we're really concerned about. That's how I do it. I have a question for Julian. I've worked with Julian on grants and desks, and that's really valuable. I'm just wondering if you could describe sort of your system if you have one. Because when we're writing at grant, there are things coming from 40 different directions that all have to feed into this final project. You have some sort of flowchart or excel sheet, it's all in your family. That's pretty much in my hat. Yeah, I think because every circumstance is different. So depending on whether we're doing USDA grants, we have 18, 20 grants coming to me at one time. Or if I'm working on a foundation grant where it's less intensive. Because some of them, the PI is going to be more involved in filling out different things because sometimes they can only access a form or only one person can work on a form at a time. Grants that go by more involved with. One of the pieces that I always work with the faculty on is, you know, again, it's kind of going back to this whole budget thing. It's not what you are focused on when you're starting to do a grant. You're thinking about, okay, objectives, then what do I want to do and the science behind it or the reasoning, you know, and all that kind of stuff. And so to really work to make sure that we're also doing that budget on the front end of it. Because although that might not be their priority for me to get it out on time. Because I can't control, you know, that it's something we have to, you know, work through the process. I push them as hard as we can to get it done as soon as possible. And so that's kind of number one on my priority list. But that also includes them that they have to have some bit of a summary and, you know, talk through budget justifications, things like that. The other things that I worked through, and depending again, of course, the USDA grant is going to be more labor intensive. Getting all the necessary who's going to be on the grant and then figuring out what kinds of forms. So if I have these five people, what their roles and responsibilities are, because depending on that, I may need curriculum, I may need current and pending. I may need their conflict of interest. You know, and it depends on what their role is. So, you know, we have a lot of discussions about how involved they're going to be. What are they going to be doing? Well, then I would put them as a collaborator because then you only need these forms from them. You know, a lot of that is a continuous discussion throughout the process of getting the grant prepared. And then I'm constantly reading the guidelines while they're doing it too. And I'll find, oh, did you see this new thing about broader impacts? Or did you see this new thing about you have to have a statement about this? So we're constantly tweaking throughout the thing. And then I also have a list of what forms I'll need. Again, depending on how complicated the grant process may be. One grant may be one just for grant.gov. You know, a lot. And so, yeah. I was looking for this. I'm pretty sure it's not going to help me if I ever let us know. I was wondering. No, none of us have. Yeah, I think a big experience. A piece of communication, you know, is, you know, having the guidelines and communicating back and forth about where you are in the process. You know, what do you need help with? Have you, did you remember to get that letter from so-and-so? You know, and so a lot of it is a conversation. And that could be a very huge kind of piece of the part. Is getting letters from, if it be subs or, you know, just letters of references. Or those are the things that a person really needs to get done in advance. Because that can really, I mean, it has many times held up grants for getting submitted. So, especially when we are working with other states or, you know, just because their state says, well, they don't need to do that, doesn't necessarily mean that it's not required. I've had a few PIs submit something out my knowledge. And then later on you have to go back and fix all that. Because NDSU still has to approve of your work with that institution or whatever you're doing. I mean, you cannot commit NDSU resources without their knowledge. They have to know that. And, you know, I've worked with a lot of different states. Well, we don't need a letter, but we do. We need a letter that says that you are going to work with us. That you're agreeing to this. That your university is agreeing that you can work on this. And all of that up front is a huge, huge help. Because it just, it does, it takes time. Because if their sponsor programs requires three days and their egg budget office requires three days, you know, that's six days before you're going to move it somewhere. So, just got to climb ahead. I just want to make one other comment to kind of summarize this part up a little bit. And that is that when we first talked about this and we spent some time on the phone, the four of us visiting, I used the phrase that appears to me, what my experience here is, is that we have organized chaos. And I don't think you can totally change that because things change a lot. You know, you've got all these people, whether it's at the department level, whether I don't have department level help, whether I'm going through SPA and I'm going through egg budget, and then never mind later grants and contracts, which we aren't going to talk about today. But all of that is, everybody's got systems. And it can feel very chaotic and that's usually when I get to hear about people being so frustrated and so upset about something. And it is. It just is because there are lots of layers. I think it's helpful for you to see and hear this. And by seeing and hearing this, you have a different perspective than sitting back when we're all in our own little tunnel vision world and I'm busy and we forget that everybody else has their organized chaos to deal with too. So I hope that if anything you've picked up a few tips and you will have some patience with all the different entities that have to weigh in here to make a successful grant. And we talked about how it would be really helpful after this is over too for us to kind of come together. And maybe there is a fix for that form, Ken. I don't know. Maybe there are some small things that will come of this visit today. And if you continue to send your suggestions to us when you run into that roadblock. I know even when we were talking, I was sharing an example about a multi-state grant and Murnen had an excellent point. She said, well, if you could show me that, I'd understand it better. This is a while ago and we fixed it and I don't think I can find you the original problem anymore. So it's too late. I just knew it was a problem. Okay. So at the point next time you have an issue. Okay. This is what I'm talking about. This is what doesn't seem right to me. Can we fix this? Please then speak up and we'll see what we can do. And we'll try to keep a conversation going and see what we can do. Okay. So I thank you three very much for being brave enough to just put yourself out here and offer to everybody that you take a phone call. That's big too. One call. Per person. Per year. So you have to throw like that too. Thank you very much.