Senior Contracting Specialist (Office of Sponsored Research)

Responsibilities

• Serves as a point of contact during negotiation and review of agreements.
• Oversees agreement process through final signature.
• Negotiates, drafts, executes and maintains research contracts including subcontracts, material transfer, data transfer, collaboration, and confidentiality agreements.
• Maintains agreement templates and updates standard operating procedures as needed.
• Timely enters and maintains agreements in repository and other database systems.
• Schedules progress reports and deliverables on all awards and contracts in database systems with appropriate notifications.
• Affords assistance with the intake process of new agreement requests from the centralized web-based grant portal.
• Determines the appropriate intellectual property provisions to include in agreements, in light of existing institutional commitments and likelihood that an invention will be made in the proposed work.
• Understands and keeps current with regulations, policies and processes, applicable to grants and contracts, as well as state and federal laws.
• Works with Research Executive Director to ensure that template language for standard Joslin contract is in compliance with all Federal, State, and Institutional requirements.
• Identifies issues as needed for review by Office of Sponsored Research and Research Compliance Officer.
• Finalizes research agreements including securing approvals, signatures, overseeing handoff of completed agreements to OSR administration and to related stakeholders.
• Responsible for subrecipient risk assessment process for federal awards and FFATA reporting.
• Educates OSR and other Joslin personnel on the contracts process and components.
• Participates proactively in ad-hoc committees/workgroups to optimize agreements workflows, accountability and transparency.
• Performs systems audit as needed or required.
• Will participate in special tasks or duties as requested for the needs of the office, including but not limited to, the intake process from the centralized web-based grant portal, patent and trademark docketing and other items as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; Doctoral degree preferred
• 3-5 years related work experience, with experience in contract negotiation and federal grants
• Licensing experience in academic and medical research preferred
• Strong organization and time management skills with ability to manage numerous projects simultaneously in a time sensitive environment required
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, as well as a member of an interdisciplinary team
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills required
• Advanced skills with Microsoft applications which may include Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Access and other web-based applications
• May produce complex documents, perform analysis and maintain databases
• Ability to work with a varied caseload with minimal supervision, exercising strong judgment and applying the appropriate legal principles and Joslin policies and practices to specific legal issues
• Outstanding verbal and written skills proven in either a legal, university or academic medical center setting are required