Senior/key personnel are defined as individuals who individuals who contribute in a substantive, meaningful way to the scientific development or execution of the project, whether or not salaries are requested. The principal investigator (PI) / program director (PD) is always considered senior/key personnel.
Across all Federal agencies, prior approval is always required for a change in PI/PD, a multiple-PI, and/or a co-PI/co-PD. For NIH awards, prior approval is only required for a change in senior/key personnel named on the notice of award. For other federal agencies, prior approval requirements vary but is usually required for a change in key person named in the application or the award.
The following is needed by the sponsoring agency for a change in senior/key personnel:
- name of new senior/key personnel
- their email address
- their user name for the Federal sponsoring agency system (e.g. for NIH, the eRA Commons ID
- their level of effort in person-months devoted to the project
- their biographic sketch in sponsor-required format (pdf)
- their other support (pdf) (note: for NIH requests, this needs to be a separate attachment from the biographical sketch)
- if this project has multiple PD/PIs, confirmation of who the lead/contact PD/PI is
- date that this change is effective
- strong scientific justification for change, including any proposed changes in scope (pdf)
- budget changes, if any, resulting from the proposed change
- for NIH awards, if this is a change in a multiple PD/PI award, a new or revised leadership plan
- for NIH awards, the request/justification should mention as to whether change(s) in PD/PI or Senior/Key Personnel is related to concerns about safety and/or work environments (e.g. due to concerns about harassment, bullying, retaliation, or hostile working conditions)
- for NIH awards, confirmation of whether or not human subjects education is up to date for the requested individual
Additionally, for a change in PI, the following are required by UCSD:
- New PI's Department FinUnit number for administering this project
- New PI's Department MSO/DBO approval that they will accept this award (email acceptable)
- New PI's Department Chair approval (email acceptable)
- New PI's approval or signature of the certification language in Kuali
- Former PI's Department MSO/DBO approval that they will no longer be administering this award (email acceptable)
- Former PI's Department Chair approval (email acceptable)
- Confirmation that Former PI acknowledges/is aware of this transfer (previous dept fund manager’s email confirmation with a cc to the Former PI's email is acceptable)
After your request is submitted, the OCGA officer will reach out if there are any questions or any information is missing. Please note that the new PI's conflict of interest will be needed; this process will be triggered when this submission is made.
Upload the required documents into the "Attachment" field.
Please note: due to system limitations, to upload multiple attachments, select all attachments and upload them once rather than individually.