ARP ATP Audit Guide - 2002

Research Grants And Development

Informations

• Publié par: Sued
• Nombre de lectures: 24
• Langue: English

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Advanced Research Program/Advanced Technology Program
Audit Guide


Institutions that receive Advanced Research Program/Advanced Technology Program
(ARP/ATP) grants from the state of Texas agree to audit a sample of their funded projects with
their internal audit staff every two years and furnish a copy of the audit report to the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board (Grant Condition #1).

In preparing for their audits, internal audit staff may wish to consult the following resources:

• Enabling legislation for the ARP/ATP: chapters 142 and 143 of the Texas Education
Code
• ARP/ATP Program Announcements
o Definitions
o Restrictions
o Grant Conditions
• Reminder memo to institutions about scheduling internal audits
• List of audit issues
• List of information to include in audit reports
• No-cost extension memo

These items can be conveniently accessed on the internet at www.arpatp.com from the “For
Internal Auditors” link under “Institutions and Researchers” on the main page, except for the
enabling legislation which is found under “The Law” link in the “Visitors” section on the main
page.

Grant Competitions: Competitions for ARP/ATP grants are held in the odd-numbered years
when the legislature appropriates money for the two programs. Since the programs began in
1987, ARP has received approximately $20 million and ATP approximately $40 million per
biennium.

TDT Grants: The Technology Development and Transfer (TDT) program was initiated in 1993
to commercialize technology developed under previous ARP or ATP grants. It operates under
the umbrella of the ATP. All references to ARP/ATP are meant to include TDT as part of the
ATP.

In 2001, the Advisory Committee on Research Programs recommended expansion of the TDT
program to include technologies developed independent of previous ARP and ATP funding.

TDT grants require a matching contribution from an industrial partner(s) willing to commercialize
the technology. The matching contribution may be cash or in-kind. Institutions are required to
monitor and document the receipt of matching contributions from industrial partners. The
matching contributions should be used to support work on the TDT project.

Awards: All ARP/ATP awards to an institution or for a specific investigator can be searched by
competition year at www.arpatp.com. To do a search, select “Other Award Info” under the
“Visitors” section of the main page. Then select “Search for Awards.”
Term of Projects: ARP/ATP awards are for two calendar years. Projects with approved
budgets may begin on January 1 following a grant competition and are scheduled to terminate
on December 31 of the following year. If the legislature makes provisions that permit extension
of the grants, the Coordinating Board will notify the institutions that they may issue 8-month, no-
cost extensions to the grants. The investigators must submit timely progress reports in order to
be eligible for no-cost extensions.

Project Number: Each grant is assigned a project number by the ARP/ATP electronic
submissions system when the proposal is developed. The project number is a three-part
number that includes the six-digit FICE code for the submitting institution, a four-digit number
that represents the next number up for submissions from that FICE code (0001, 0002, etc.), and
a four-digit number that shows the year of the competition. For example, 000512-0003-2001 is
the project number for the third proposal started by an investigator at the Texas Engineering
Experiment Station in the 2001 grants competition.

Grant Conditions/Restrictions: Grant conditions and restrictions that are applicable to a
specific grant can be found in the Program Announcements for the competition year that
provided the award. The last four digits of the project number identify the competition year.

Reports: Institutions file three types of required reports for ARP/ATP grants: progress reports,
final technical reports, and final financial reports. The brief technical descriptions of grant
activities found in progress and final reports (Section A’s) are posted on the www.arpatp.com
web site under the link “Current Projects.”

An auditor can view these reports and their associated submission time/date stamps by logging
into a read-only version of his or her institution’s Sponsored Program Office’s web page.
Usernames and passwords are assigned by the Research Office of the Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board (e-mail: [e-mail] or [e-mail]
or call 512-427-6150).

• Progress Reports: Investigators with active ARP/ATP grants are required to
electronically file annual progress reports. The reports must be submitted to the
Coordinating Board by the first business day in July.

• Final Technical Reports: Investigators are required to electronically file a final technical
report within a timeframe specified by the grant conditions for that particular competition
year.

• Financial Reports: The institution must electronically file a final financial report within 90
days of the termination of a project. These reports can be reviewed via the read-only
version of the Sponsored Program Officer’s web page (see above).

Supplemental Grants: Since 1999, the Advisory Committee on Research Programs has
recommended supplemental grants that allow high school science and math teachers to work
on active ARP/ATP projects over the summer. Conditions and restrictions for these grants are
found in the information and application sheets posted under “Supplemental Grant Information”
on the arpatp.com web page. “Teacher Activities” reports, which are available as archived
documents in the “Reports” section of the web site, include listings of supplemental awards.

Electronic Submissions System: Since 1998, the Research Office of the Coordinating Board
has worked with institutional Offices of Sponsored Projects to increase the amount of reporting that is conducted over the internet. As of fall 2001, the following are submitted electronically via
the ARPATP On-Line submission system: annual progress reports, budget changes requests,
final technical reports, final financial reports, follow-up reports (conducted four years after the
completion of the projects), post-competition surveys of investigators and sponsored program
officers, pre-proposals, proposals submitted to selected research areas, and initial budgets.

Contact Information: If you have questions or comments, the Research staff will be available
to address them. Contact Linda Domelsmith or Gala Peters at 512-427-6150 or by e-mail at
[e-mail] or [e-mail].

Audit reports should be sent to

Dr. Linda Domelsmith
Division of Finance, Campus Planning, and Research
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
P. O. Box 12788
Austin, TX 78711