Review Your Award
General Terms and Conditions
A notice of grant award or contract document is legally binding, with terms and conditions that need to be reviewed carefully. A contract is legally binding when all parties have agreed to the terms and signed it to indicate acceptance. For Federal grants, we usually receive a notice of grant award via email and signatures are not required on the document. These grants are considered accepted when funds are drawn down on the project. The award notice/document will also be checked to make sure that it has been awarded as it was initially proposed. Sometimes budgets are cut without prior notice, and we need to make sure you can still do the project with the funds that are granted. We also want to make sure that the terms are acceptable to our Principle Investigators and to The Research Foundation of SUNY. If there are problems with any terms or conditions, your Grant & Contract Administrator will negotiate with the sponsor to get these resolved.
Authorized Parties
Although you as Principle Investigator are responsible for the scientific conduct of the project, the legal agreement will be between The Research Foundation of SUNY and the sponsor. At SUNY Buffalo, a Principle Investigator is not authorized to enter into an agreement that would legally bind The Research Foundation to a sponsor. This is designed to protect both the Principle Investigator and the University.
Conflict of Interest
At award time, your Grant & Contract Specialist will request confirmation from your Dean’s office that you have a current Annual Disclosure of Significant Financial Interests and Significant Obligations form on file. This needs to be completed and submitted each year to your Dean’s office. It enables the Dean to verify that there will not be any conflicts of interest caused by your work on the newly awarded project. Without this, your Dean will not sign off on the Sponsored Projects Services approval form, and the award will not be able to be processed until the Annual Disclosure form is received.
