Award Management

Subcontracts

A subcontract (also called subaward or subagreement) occurs when the prime recipient organization with a sponsored grant or contract allocates a portion of the scope of work to be performed by another institution or organization (subrecipient/subawardee/subcontractee) to complete.

Subcontract Process At Proposal Stage

If a UNCG PI wishes to include another institution in an upcoming proposal as a third party who will perform a substantive portion of the effort, the following documents must be provided to OSP prior to the submission of the proposal:

1. Subrecipient Commitment and Monitoring Form 2024
2. Detailed subrecipient budget and justification. The budget format and categories should closely follow the proposal guidelines required by the sponsor. If the prime organization (UNCG) is allowed to charge indirect costs on the proposal budget, those terms must also flow down to the subrecipient budget form.
3. Statement of work. This document should be detailed and should outline expectations and commitments to the project expected of and committed by the subrecipient. Sample Scope of Work / Template can be found here.
4. Letter of intent signed by the subrecipient’s institutional authorized official. Sample can be found here.

Please allow sufficient time for your subrecipient to route these documents at their intuition. UNCG OSP will need the final the institutionally approved documents from your subrecipient at the time the proposal is routed for department approvals in Cayuse.

Budgeting

The subrecipient’s budget will be included on UNCG’s budget as a direct cost. To calculate UNCG’s F&A costs, the amount that exceeds the first $25,000 of each subcontract will be excluded from the calculation.

For details on including a subrecipient in the overall project budget, please see: “Subcontracts/Subagreements” on the Budget Development page.

Subcontract Process Upon receipt of Award

A subcontract will only be issued after a fully executed award is received and processed by OSP from the prime sponsor.

Upon receipt of your award notice, please complete and send your OSP specialist the Subcontract Request form.

 Also include an up to date:

1. subrecipient budget and budget justification, reflecting any needed changes that occurred during awarding process.
2. statement of work.
3. an updated letter of intent, if project total changed
4. an updated subrecipient commitment form, if there were changes to the eligibility status of the subrecipient organization.

Once these documents are received by your specialist, a subagreement will be prepared, and a draft sent to the subrecipient authorized official as specified in the subi-mitted forms. OSP will negotiate any requested changes in consultation with PIs, UNCG legal, department personnel, and other needed parties. Once finalized, OSP will execute the agreement on behalf of UNCG and will send one fully executed copy to the subcontractor and upload a copy of the subagreement into the appropriate Cayuse proposal/award file

Cost-Reimbursable vs. Fixed Price Subcontract

Cost-reimbursable agreements constitute the majority of agreements issued by UNCG, and due to regulations around subrecipient monitoring, a PI should plan to utilize this type of agreement. The subriecipient organization has prepared and will follow a detailed budget. A cost-reimbursable agreement involves UNCG reimbursing the subreicipient organization for allowable and actual costs incurred in the course of completing project activities. This is typically done via an invoicing process, and funds are dispersed no more than monthly.

In rare cases, cost-reimbursable funds may be provided in advance. For instance, a portion of the awarded amount may be issued to a subrecipient upon execution of the agreement or on a fixed payment schedule. However, the subrecipient would still be required to report all costs to UNCG, and any unallowable expenses or unspent funds would need to be returned to UNCG.

Fixed Price Agreements are very rare, and should only be considered when the services or goods can be adequately described and measured in clear, unambiguous terms. The subcontractor is awarded a specified number of lump sum payments over the course of the project for a performance of a specified set of tasks or received deliverables. For example, UNCG may issue a fixed-price subagreement to another university to analyze samples at a fixed price per sample.

With both types of agreements, the scope of work, total budget amount, and term of the agreement can only be modified through an agreement modification.