FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2001

Present:  Bruno Giordani, Thomas Brock, Lajos Balogh, Peter Ward, Marvin Parnes, Thomas Brock, J. Hunter Waite, Katherine Meiners, Mark Wenzel, Jane Ritter (staff)

Minutes:   The minutes from 11/9/01 were approved and will be revised for proper format.

•         Patriot Act passed.  There will be a UM meeting next week to discuss how this will impact universities in terms of performing background checks, etc.

•         Sponsored Program full report distributed.  Outlines specific areas identified and recommends approach for follow-up and development of an implementation team.  Implementation team has been meeting every week - taken each item and done more detailed analysis:  nature, who’s involved, what are some of the issues associated, similar to what consulting firm would do for change management.  Next step is to prioritize them and cluster by similarities.  Then look at who needs to make the changes, what the costs, are there any policy changes associated with the changes.    Marvin can report back at future meetings. 

Sponsored Program Implementation Task Team (SPITT) has 2 year life - by 9/02, high quadrant done, by 9/03, next quadrants done.  Beyond that, not planned.  Must result in problem-solving structure, and involved in continuous problem solving and identifying.  Multi-disciplinary team good thing, makes sense for a regular existence. 

FUTURE AGENDA ITEM:  Put this on future agenda and have RPC make formal recommendation for permanent team.  This group may suggest recommendation for how SPITT will continue to function.

•         DRDA:  Rob Todd chairing review of DRDA.  Self-study submitted; External Review in January; and Internal Review to follow.  Should be completed by end of May.

FUTURE AGENDA ITEM:  Invite Rob to present review results.

ISSUES FOR FUTURE DISCUSSION:

-University budget model - Marvin Parnes spoke to Marilyn Knepp who would come to RPC.

-MGP to look at differential programs in schools and colleges - IDC to individual faculty

AGENDA:  What U does and what units do. 

Provost’s website:  budgeting, article from Paul Courant/Marilyn Knepp.

The more specific the questions about budgeting, the better. 

ACTION:  Collect specific questions before meeting.

Compare differences between units on salaries put on grants.  Clarify and why disparities. 

TOPIC:  Interdisciplinary research topic.  Report out

•         What are some of the key recommendations out of re-accreditation report.

•         use of supplemental PAF used by ISR

•         where is ORG code, what dept holds what

AGENDA:  Marvin will think about who else could present - perhaps Research Deans in units who have to deal with this issue. 

NIH/NSF budget.  Looks like reasonable future increases in both. 

AGENDA:  Invite Toby Smith to review Fed

TOPIC:  Intellectual property - invite James Hilton - draft policy distributed to RPC 11/9/01. 

TOPIC:  Conflict of interest and conflict of commitment.  No official policy on conflict of commitment.   More important as internet is used more.  I.e. can you be listed as professor in virtual institute and full time at UM.  Bollinger’s position has been no.  UM may need to have future policies.

Is there a specific guideline relating to research faculty commitments?  Do guidelines exist?  Rules are for faculty and research are faculty.  UM should not have different policies for different groups.  Conflict of interest coming up often in Medical School. 

VA policy on Intellectual Policy of concern. 

TOPIC:  International Research/Patriot Act

•         involvement of foreign students in research.

•         legislation for background checks

•         now only on HazMat

ACTION:  Probably will have something to report later next semester.  Bottleneck will be in getting visas.  Visa system chaotic now.

TOPIC:  Stem cells

Human subjects compliance and other compliance issues.  Judy may want to talk to group.  MPRIME project, Anderson Consulting coming in to map processes in proposal processing, where do we re-engineer, where are we most vulnerable.  How efficiently are we dealing with protocols related to human subjects?  Also, education program.

Place on future meeting agenda.

Is there a plan for internal review of researchers?  Is someone going to see if within the UM, laboratories are in compliance?  FTU will be looking at what kind of audit do we need?  OVPR initiated audit and found problem and dealt with it.  Should we do this routinely? 

Next meeting is 1/11/02.