Abstract

Recipient institutions have been audited and scrutinized heavily in recent years. Current and pending US legislation also promotes intensive accountability by recipients of US federal funds. This session centers on key audit areas and compliance exposures for European institutions participating in US government-funded projects.

We will start the session by diving directly into 5 hot audit and compliance areas currently on the radar for US government authorities, and which often involve non-US recipients or subrecipients: 1. Inadequate time and effort recording; 2. Failure to obtain prior approvals for certain award activity (new collaborators, foreign components, rebudgeting, etc.); 3. Mishandling research misconduct allegations; 4. Supply chain and cybersecurity; and 5. Undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Next, will proceed to review the anatomy of a government audit based on real-life experience of institutions facing an audit of USG funds – how they start, how they unfold, what institutions should do, and how to handle issues that arise.

Finally, we will focus on lessons learned by institutions to build the record and successfully withstand an audit. The key take away message for the audience is the following: compliance with US government funding policies and procedures is getting more and more difficult, and has challenged some of the most prominent research institutions in the world. There is much to learn from public audit reports and experiences of peers to help improve outcomes in this area.

The audience will benefit from a US perspective, particularly as US-European scientific collaborations have matured over time. This is an evolving area, and US sponsoring agencies have revamped and updated expectations and guidance over the past year. Accordingly, institutions must devote resources to keeping up with developments and improving their overall understanding of key financial and scientific elements of US government grants and contracts. We aim to include discussion time for the audience to articulate best practices and approaches to dealing with US government requirements.