Welcome back to MicroLearning Mondays, our biweekly series of bite-sized research administration trainings brought to you by the Department of Contracts and Grants.
This week’s topic: Subawards Made Simple: How to Avoid Delays
Why It Matters: Subawards are essential for enabling collaboration across institutions, but they can occasionally be a source of administrative slowdowns. Delays in setup can stall project launches, freeze budgets, and increase compliance risk if not handled properly. To keep research moving forward, it’s important to classify collaborators correctly, secure any required sponsor approvals early, submit complete and accurate Workday requests, and actively monitor subrecipients after the award is issued. Following these practices ensures projects remain on schedule, funds flow smoothly, and USC stays in compliance with sponsor requirements.
In This Video, You’ll Learn:
- How to distinguish subrecipients vs. vendors/contractors and why correct classification matters.
- What to include in the proposal-stage subaward package to prevent downstream delays.
- How to initiate and amend subawards in Workday, including required fields and attachments.
- The compliance checks the Department of Contracts and Grants (DCG) performs.
- PI monitoring responsibilities.
Questions or Feedback?
We’re here to help! For anything related to MicroLearning Mondays, please reach out to Noah Congelliere in the Department of Contracts and Grants.