Contract Manager, Research Administration

Colorado School of Mines•Colorado, CO

1d•$114,000 - $126,300•Hybrid

About The Position

The Research & Sponsored Contracts Manager (Manager) will represent The Office of Research Administration in a wide range of activities, committees, and meetings. They will collaborate and interact with many internal and external constituencies including campus administration and academic departments, other higher education institutions, governmental agencies (e.g. Office of Navel Research, Department of Defense, and The Department of Energy), and industry partners. They must be able to maintain high customer service levels while meeting strict deadlines. In this leadership role, the Manager must engage in effective collaboration, become a trusted partner with the university community, and engage campus as appropriate. This position requires critical thinking in various analysis to apply regulatory interpretation to research and sponsored activity. They will be responsible for independently compiling, analyzing, and presenting contract data. In addition, they will be required to work with campus constituents, including faculty and staff to manage research and sponsored activity and must have the ability to provide effective communication of regulatory information for a broad audience. This is a managerial position responsible for the management of research, other sponsored, and intellectual property agreements through ORA and provides leadership to the Research & Sponsored Contracts team. This position is a key member of the Research Administration team and serves as a resource to faculty and a liaison for Mines and sponsoring research organizations. Each Contract Administrator, including the Manager, is assigned its own academic portfolio and works directly with those faculty to complete all sponsored research requirements. The Manager will serve as a lead resource to faculty and administrators in the administration of all sponsored research, specifically in interpreting and negotiating sponsored projects and intellectual property agreements. This position requires critical thinking skills to review and interpret terms and conditions, policies and procedures, sponsor expectations and is responsible for determining that agreements are ready for execution. This position may be hybrid, and requires a majority of their time (3 day per week minimum) with on-campus presence in Golden, Colorado. Colorado School of Mines provides dedicated professional development and training. Onboarding for this position includes training on policies and procedures, and technical training opportunities for systems and technology required for this role.

Requirements

Bachelors degree in business or related field
Eight years research administration contracting experience
Five years experience in supervising, managing and training of an administrative and professional staff
Experience with Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property negotiations
Working knowledge of federal and state regulations regarding research and tech transfer
Excellent communication skills including the ability to communicate complex contracting issues to faculty, staff, and industry partners in a concise, friendly, and collaborative manner
Problem solving and analyzation skills. Ability to critically analyze information in order to make independent decisions
Demonstrated customer service skills, the ability to work effectively with a wide range of constituencies in a large STEM community and ability to meet multiple, sometimes competing, deadlines

Nice To Haves

Juris Doctorate (J.D.) degree
Experience with sponsored research within an institution of Higher Education
Significant (five or more years) contract negotiation experience
Professional competency in application of government & federal regulations, including 2 CFR 200
Experience with data analysis
Thorough knowledge of federal regulations governing sponsored research
Familiarity with university policies regarding contracting, procurement, or research funding

Responsibilities

Provide leadership the Research & Sponsored Contract unit, 4-8 Full Time Employees, with the authority to hire, evaluate performance, and resolve personnel concerns
Develop and maintain a highly skilled and engaged team through managing the organizational structure, roles, and responsibilities of the team
Develop and maintain an inclusive and respectful work environment with a team capable of working through new challenges, responsive to ad hoc requests, able to meet important deadlines, and is highly accountable for accuracy in their work product
Ensure high quality, elite customer advising services to the campus community and implement service metrics and feedback reporting.
Ensure performance plans include role-based professional development goals to drive exceptional quality work products
Develop performance-based metrics and ensure robust feedback loops between manager and employees are regularly utilized and documented
Foster a culture of professional development and continuous improvement within the staff. Shift the department’s perception from a "bottleneck" to a "solution provider" by streamlining support and user-facing resources
Determine work prioritization by evaluating workloads, deadlines, complexity of the work load, School policy and staff resources. To facilitate these functions, this position will build standard and ad hoc reports to provide performance metric data
Acts to resolve complex administrative or legal questions or issues that arise and coordinates with and escalates to Assistant Director and/or ORA Director on resolution, as needed and as appropriate
Establish and promote and manage professional relationships and open communications among all departments. Promote team building, strong collaborative and people-oriented environment with a strong work ethic among team members
Responsible for creating and maintaining efficient policies and procedures for the Contracting unit. This will require continuous evaluation of processes, researching best practices, analyzing contracting data and statics and performing regular risk assessments
Provides expertise and consultation related to regulatory and policy issues for successful management of research projects to ORA staff, departmental administrators and faculty
Remains knowledgeable about current federal regulations, pending changes, OMB CRFs, Federal Acquisition Regulations, state of Colorado regulations and school policy
Develops contractual training material for ORA staff and campus. Training will be targeted to the audience and include one on one trainings, larger training sessions and web material
Identify issues and present solutions and approaches for resolution; develop creative solutions to complex contract issues
Asist with and work on Special Projects based on Mines’ large-scale and strategic initiatives
Review, draft and manage sponsored research agreements, both initial and modifications from external organizations. Analyze the agreement to determine if the terms and conditions meet federal and state regulations
Reviews, drafts, and manages various contracts and agreements pertaining to intellectual property. These include, but are not limited to NDAs, MTAs, IIAs, IPMPs, Technology Licensing Agreements, and associated amendments
Work with the General Counsel and IP Commercialization team to review and draft appropriate contracting templates with a focus on applicable business terms, intellectual property, liability, indemnification, publishing rights, confidentiality, governing law and compliance with federal, state and university policies and regulations
Negotiate unacceptable terms by suggesting or insisting on alternative language or deletion of certain terms and conditions, while balancing compliance with institutional risk appetite
Determine if additional Mines personnel need to be advised of terms and conditions of an award and if their approval is required in order to accept the award
Determine if changes are required to existing agreements and coordinate the contractual amendment process, as necessary
Determine if changes to a research project require prior approval from the project’s sponsor. If prior approval is required, this position will coordinate with the faculty member to create and submit the change request
Submit and approve requests for no-cost time extensions, budget deviations, and pre-award spending based on sponsor requirements
Perform initial reviews on deficit spending requests (currently, At-Risk Spending Requests) to determine if the financial risk to Mines is acceptable under current policy and practices
If issues arise during the performance of a research project, this position will work with the applicable faculty members, ORA staff members, other departments and/or project sponsor, as applicable, to address such concerns
Responsible for initiating, negotiating and managing research subcontracts. This includes a review of the subcontractor’s proposal; determining which subcontract template is applicable, determining the applicable prime contract flow-down terms and conditions; negotiating, if necessary, the drafted subcontract; maintaining subcontract documentation to meet federal and state audit requirements; and manage annual review of subrecipients
Work with applicable departments to establish the payment mechanisms for subcontractor invoices
Responsible for ensuring all contract information on the ORA website is accurate and current
Assist in the maintenance of ORA’s Research and Contract Management software and the School’s financial system; specifically, with regards to contractual and legal information. Ensure there are adequate training materials and coordinate with other campus offices and faculty on process changes
Work with the data repository team to implement and maintain the software with regards to contracts unit
Responsible for ensuring accurate data is entered into the data repository
Upload all fully executed agreements, modifications, and sponsor prior approvals into the system
Work with the data repository team to implement and maintain the software with regards to contracts unit
Maintain communication with faculty to ensure all information for agreements are outlined along with the process to negotiate the agreement. Effective communication is critical to success of this position.
Interpret and explain federal, state, and Mines regulations and policies to faculty and other Mines personnel in order to help them understand the contracting process and how the regulations apply to individual agreements.
Ongoing contact with sponsoring agencies and other external personnel for the purpose of agreement negotiation and management including outline of Mines policies, business practices, and other applicable regulations.
Provide formal and informal training to faculty members and departmental staff regarding school policy and procedures and sponsoring agency rules and regulations in relation to negotiating and accepting a sponsored research and intellectual property agreements.
Provide support to Contract team, particularly regarding University initiatives and Special Projects
Actively participate in office wide process evaluation and reengineering efforts. Critically evaluate process and procedures with a goal of efficiency and optimal resource utilization. Make recommendations for improvements to management and lead improvement efforts if approved.

Benefits

Flexible health and dental care options
Generous sick/vacation time: 13 paid holidays per year – including a week-long winter break for entire campus.
Fully vested retirement plan on first day of employment, with generous employer contribution
Tuition benefits (6 credits per year for employees, 50 percent discount for dependents)
Free RTD Ecopass
Discount programs through the State of Colorado
Free tickets for Mines Athletics home games
Access to the state of the art Recreation Center (fitness classes and training, swimming pool and more)
Equipment rentals through the Outdoor Rec Center
On campus daycare center