The Office of Research Administration
The Office of Research Administration (ORA) is comprised of several departments designed to support faculty, industry partners, and research administrators.
The Office of Clinical Research (OCR) has a hand in many operational aspects of conducting clinical research at Emory. Their roles include research staff trainings, clinical trial invoicing, pre-award activities, and ensuring that study data is updated in a variety of internal and external systems. In these workstreams, they cross boundaries to meet the needs of researchers through service excellence.
The Office of Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment (COI and COC) provides oversight, systemic safeguards, and regulatory expertise in managing individual and institutional financial interests that could impact research and scholarly activities. In doing so, we support Emory investigators and scholars in maintaining integrity in their research efforts.
This office reports to Research Compliance and Regulatory Affairs (RCRA).
The Environmental Health and Safety Office (EHSO) keeps our researchers and campus safe from hazards around campus or produced/used during research experiments. Their services include trainings and guidance around hazardous materials, tools to maintain compliance, and safety assessments and precaution implementation. Their work promotes safe and compliant operations, ensuring safety and health of people on campus and the environment.
The Export Control (EC) Office is responsible for the development, implementation, monitoring, and coordination of Emory's Export Control Compliance Program. This includes supporting research and academic departments related to the sharing of information and materials with international collaborators. They also provide assistance to business units in assessing obligations as related to compliance with US export control regulations. This may include developing compliance procedures, tools and/or providing implementation oversight.
This office reports to Research Compliance and Regulatory Affairs (RCRA).
The Office of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC or Animal Care and Use): IACUC has the responsibility of ensuring the proper care, use, and humane treatment of animals used in research, teaching, and testing. They provide technical and administrative support, along with regulatory expertise to researchers across campus. They coordinate with the faculty led IACUC committee and skilled veterinarian staff. Their collective activities ensure that investigators can fulfill their obligation to plan and conduct animal experiments with the highest scientific, humane, and ethical principles.
This office reports to Research Compliance and Regulatory Affairs (RCRA).
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) facilitates ethical and compliant human subjects research. Along with supporting the university's ethics review committee, they are the central component of Emory's multi-tiered Human Research Protection Program. They maintain a toolbox of documents designed to aid researchers in preparing submissions and to aid project implementation.
Research Administration Information Technology (RA IT) serves as a technology facilitator, intermediary, and project liaison on behalf of ORA departments with various third-party vendors and the University's central IT division (OIT). Staff work in close collaboration with ORA units to understand and enhance IT infrastructure and processes and maximize service delivery.
The Office of Research Business Operations (RBO) provides financial management, human resources support, operational and administrative support for the Senior Vice President for Research office and all divisions of Research Administration.
The Office of Research Compliance and Regulatory Affairs (RCRA) supports research compliance functions around risk assessment, oversight, training, and monitoring. RCRA is responsible for facilitating the work for research misconduct, research conflict of interest and conflict of commitment, export controls, regulatory non-compliance, FOIA requests, and regulatory site visits. Their efforts ensure that the extensive research mission of Emory is upheld with the utmost integrity and attention to relevant mandates.
Reporting offices include:
The Office of Research Grants and Contracts (RGC) is responsible for central oversight and expertise related to post-award financial services of sponsored projects, including ensuring that invoicing, reconciliation, and financial compliance are maintained in partnership with school and central administration.
The Office of Research Integrity and Compliance (ORIC): ORIC is available for research compliance inquires, training and support. They collaborate with ORA offices and researchers to modify and create new guidance. To support Emory research compliance, they monitor and track changes to current regulations. They oversee the review of our internal ORA research compliance processes and investigate and support the Research Integrity Officer (RIO) during research misconduct allegations.
This office reports to Research Compliance and Regulatory Affairs (RCRA).
The School and Unit Research Administration (RAS) provides faculty assistance with pre and post award activities. Their support with the compliance and administrative requirements of the grant life cycle allows researchers to concentrate on the science/study; while being excellent stewards of their sponsored funds and outcomes. The RAS consists of unique units imbedded across campus.
The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) provides efficient and expert central pre-award and non-financial post-award research administration support to the Emory research community by collaborating to seek, obtain, and administer extramural funding in support of the University's mission.
Strategic Optimization (Dragon Team) is the ORA's dedicated process improvement team. They drive strategic initiatives that optimize cross-functional business processes across the ORA, strategic partners, and the research community. Utilizing a process improvement toolbox and strategic expertise, the team ensures that ORA is continuously improving to support Emory's research enterprise.
Research Training manages ORA-wide strategy, synergy, and training initiatives, facilitating communications and continuity across all partnering offices and processes. The office is positioned to enhance ORA's bandwidth by creating synergies and coordination between units responsible for grants and contracts administration (RAS, OSP, RGC, OTT, OCR), including leading working groups focusing on the transition of awards between groups (intergroup activity), and their respective systems; as well as leading ORA's training team who focuses on developing, organizing, providing and tracking training internally and within Emory's internal research community.
The Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) is the hub of activity for innovation at Emory. The office serves as the front door for companies looking to partner with researchers, clinicians, and staff to discover, develop, or source new technology ideas that will lead to products. OTT's activities include negotiating confidentiality, data use, and material transfer agreements; compliance with federal and research sponsor requirements for intellectual property; technology scouting; commercial evaluation of new inventions; intellectual property protection; marketing new technologies; license negotiation for intellectual property rights; start-up support; and education.