7. Financial Management

Audit Realities   

The topics discussed in the earlier pages of this site deal with issues around the general topic of responsible research conduct. These topics touch on different elements of the regulatory environment dealing with the conduct of research and the relationship between the researcher and society.

The remainder of this presentation deals with another aspect of the regulatory environment - that dealing with the management of project funding. Just as with the conduct of research, there are externally-imposed requirements on the individual researcher and on the institution related to the management of research funds. The remaining sections of this tutorial focus on obligations to sponsors to maintain fiscal accountability and comply with regulations.

1. to make best use of available funds to achieve research outcomes
2. to avoid problems of fraud, waste and abuse of sponsor support.

Increasingly, requirements related to the use of federal funds create serious exposure for Stanford University and its individual PIs. One purpose of this presentation is to minimize that risk.

Audit focus today is on the direct costs of research, including the thousands of individual transactions in which PIs authorize the expenditure of sponsor funds for salaries, supplies and other costs of research. Recent audits have highlighted particular areas where regulations and compliance are complex and sometimes difficult. The following pages of this web site review these issues.