SUBJECT:	Instituting A Strong Compliance Program at Duke
FROM:	Tallman Trask, III, Executive Vice President
	Peter Lange, Provost
	Ross McKinney, Jr., Vice Dean for Research, Duke School of Medicine
DATE:	May 16, 2003

Deans, Directors, and Department Heads,

Duke is one of the largest recipients of federal research grants. As custodian of these awards, we are accountable to sponsoring agencies and have addressed this responsibility, in part, by instituting a strong compliance program. Key components of the program include mandatory training, compliance policies, and auditing.

We believe we're doing a good job, but we need to do better. Otherwise, we risk financial penalties, damage to our reputation, and loss of current and future funding. Recent examples of noncompliance and financial penalties imposed at Northwestern, Stanford, and several other institutions reflect stricter federal scrutiny of funded research.

The best way to insure our compliance with federal regulations is through an effective and comprehensive training program. A team representing Financial Services, the Office of Sponsored Programs, the Office of Research Support, the Office of Grants & Contracts and others is now developing two new Research Costing Compliance training programs:

• Mandatory training (for those who have more than $100,000 in research activity) for:
  • Principal Investigators,
  • Business Managers and
  • Grant Managers
    
    
• A certification curriculum for Grant Managers.

You will be hearing about these training initiatives in the near future. We endorse these programs, and need your support.