Research Insights

Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA), a merger of the former pre-award Office for Sponsored Programs and post-award Contracts and Grants, has been formed as a major step toward improving research administration at UGA. This merger, an initiative of the Provost’s Office with full support from the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Office of the Vice President for Finance and Administration, has been recommended by a number of faculty and administrator committees in recent years.

Unit-focused SPA teams containing both pre-award and post-award staff members will ensure a seamless continuum of grants services, from proposal development and submission to award establishment, administration, renewal and close-out. Teams will be jointly supervised by the Director of Pre-Award, Cathy Cuppett, and the Director of Post-Award, Allison Davis, who will ensure the continuance of state-of-the-art expertise in their respective areas. The two directors will report to Associate Vice President Carl Bergmann.

While numerous individuals have contributed to this significant development, we are particularly grateful to the pre- and post-award staffs for their hard work, many useful suggestions, collaborative spirit and commitment to enhancing the critically important support they provide to UGA’s growing research enterprise.