Starting the Subaward Process

Pre-Award Spending for Subawards

A subaward will not be issued, nor payments to a subrecipient authorized, prior to Stanford's receipt and acceptance of a funding commitment from the prime sponsor.  A Stanford PI or designee may not authorize a subrecipient to begin working without a fully executed subaward agreement in place.  Proposed subrecipients who commence work without a fully signed subaward agreement from OSR do so at their own risk and have no assurance of payment from Stanford.  Once a subaward is in place (typically for a year at a time), additional increments of time and funding will not be issued until first received by Stanford from the sponsor.

In the event a subaward is subsequently issued to a subrecipient, the subrecipient may claim costs properly incurred under its own risk, provided that the costs are otherwise allowable. In such cases, the subrecipient must furnish evidence to Stanford that all required compliance approvals were in place at the time the costs were incurred.

Subaward Period of Performance and Duration

The period of performance of a subaward (including any requested extensions) must be within Stanford's period of performance under the prime award. Subawards are issued for one year at a time to ensure annual monitoring requirements have been met (regardless of whether funding for multiple years was received from the sponsor).

Competitive Segment vs. Non-Competing Continuation

Under a non-competing continuation, additional increments of time, funding, supplements, etc. are added to the existing subaward under the current Purchase Order using a Standard Change Order – Subaward requisition.

Whenever Stanford's sponsored project receives funding under a new competitive segment, a new subaward and Purchase Order must be issued using a Standard Subaward requisition. This will require the collection of all new documents including OSR Form 33, SOW, Budget, Budget Justification, etc.

Subaward Funding Mechanisms

Stanford issues subawards on a cost-reimbursement basis. Rare exceptions may be made when it can be demonstrated that a fixed-price agreement is in the best interest of the University and all required prior approvals are in place.

Subaward expenditure types 54710 (IDC) and 54720 (Non-IDC) should be used for all subaward requisitions. If BOTH the sponsor AND the Subrecipient are federal entities then expenditure types 54715 (IDC) and 54725 (No IDC) should be used. If the subaward is under a University Research project, expenditure type 54320 (ISC) should be used.

Expenditure types are for the IDC Stanford recoups for administering subawards and should not be confused with the indirect costs the subrecipient is allowed to recoup for performing the work.

Supplier Confirmation

Department administrators should check for an active supplier or payee record in the university’s database before requesting a new supplier or payee setup.  Information on how to search for an existing supplier or payee record, reactivate a supplier or payee, create a new address site, or request a new supplier or payee record, can be found on Fingate’s Make a Supplier or Payee Request page.

PTA Setup and Management

When an award has been received from the sponsor, if subawards were budgeted as part of the proposal process, SeRA PTA Manager will automatically create a single Oracle Task for subawards.  If there are multiple subawards under an award, the department can request additional Oracle Tasks for each subaward to make management of the project easier.

If the award is carryover/carryforward restricted (annual soft close), a new Oracle Task will be created annually and prior Oracle tasks will  be closed at the end of each period.  The department is responsible for knowing the end dates of Oracle Tasks and Awards, and ensuring invoice payments are posted within allowable timeframes.

"Subawards" under University Research, Department, or Gift Funding

University Research Agreements - These are processed the same way as typical sponsored research subawards, but requisitions must be submitted using Expenditure Type 54320. These subawards are subject to 8% infrastructure cost (ISC) and are tracked by Expenditure Type separately from externally sponsored subawards with indirect cost (IDC) implications.

Department or Gift funding - These agreements are called Non-Sponsored Subawards instead of subawards because they are supported by a non-sponsored funding source such as department funding or gift funding. Non-Sponsored Subawards should still meet all the requirements for a subaward (e.g. an intellectually significant scope of work, reporting terms and conditions, the collaborator will own their intellectual property, etc.), but will be negotiated without sponsor flow-down terms.

To initiate a Non-Sponsored Subaward, a requisition for a Standard Subaward must be submitted in iProcurement using Expenditure Type 54320. Non-Sponsored Subawards are subject to the 8% ISC.