SUBJECT:

Sponsored Projects Administration Update

Over the past three years, a program known as "Sustaining Excellence at UCSD"
has resulted in a review and simplification of a number of institutional support
processes. The most recent project in this program, described by Chancellor
Atkinson in a Campus Notice dated February 10, 1995, is an effort to streamline
the campus process that supports sponsored projects administration. The
following summarizes the status of this effort.

The project, known as SPEAR (Sponsored Project Excellence Achieved through
Redesign), has progressed significantly in the ensuing 45 days as a result of
the support and participation of a wide spectrum of the campus community. On
Tuesday, March 28, the first phase culminated in a midstream status presentation
to the project steering team.

The presentation revealed that in a remarkably short span of time, the overall
process was defined and a detailed map was generated for each of its seven
elements--Conduct Marketing Research, Generate Proposal, Negotiate/Accept Award,
Set Up Project, Manage Finances, Create Knowledge, and Close Out Project. In
addition, the current deployment level of enabling technology at UCSD was
assessed. And finally, several focus groups were convened to obtain direct
feedback on current issues from the users of the sponsored projects process,
including principal investigators.

In the remaining phases, other public and private sector organizations will be
studied to determine potential "best practices" which may be employed at our own
campus, an ensemble of "quick wins" will be identified which can be put in place
to improve our process in the near term, and an overall redesign of the
sponsored project administration process will be synthesized and presented to
the steering team at the end of the project.

Clearly, this project will be successful only if the streamlined process meets
the needs of our principal investigators and sponsoring agencies to a much
greater degree than our current methods. To help ensure a positive outcome, you
are encouraged to continue to articulate those needs through the ongoing forum,
SPEAR@ucsd.edu, to which you may subscribe via listserv@ucsd.edu.

Steven W. Relyea Vice Chancellor