CEREO > CEREO Affiliates Benefits

CEREO Affiliates Benefits

Leveraging the CEREO Network

The CEREO network invests significant effort in learning about diverse WSU researchers’ aspirations and also in maintaining active communication with major funders of relevant environmental research.  If you are looking to start a new project, CEREO can help connect you with like minded peers, and pair you with potential funding opportunities.

CEREO offers pre- and post-award support. Pre-award support is increasingly recognized as being important for enabling the project leadership team to focus on research tasks, while easing the administrative burdens associated with large, complex grants. Post-award support in collaboration with investigator units helps streamline award management beyond financial coordination.

See below for how we can help!

Accessible and Responsive Pre-Award Management

CEREO helps researchers manage the challenging aspects of applying for funding. Investigators can expect responsive coordination with our grants & contracts manager. Our core faculty are available to help with the proposal development and writing process — including help with:

  • finding additional team members from other disciplines and units to help bring in additional needed expertise,
  • facilitating proposal meetings for interdisciplinary coordination,
  • providing proposal content reviews,
  • Assisting with final submission, including wrangling and compiling additional documentation (e.g., C&P, biosketches, COIs, etc.).

Equitable Project Credit and F&A

The goal of CEREO is to help make environmental work more collaborative. We have worked with the Office of Research to ensure that:

  • Credit for awarded grants is given both to the PI’s home department and to CEREO. This helps us keep track of where our efforts have paid off , while allowing departments and units to effectively track work being done by their faculty and students.
  • Direct & indirect funds are placed in departmental accounts, so F&A goes to the home unit of the PIs. Researchers retain access to college / department administration and can coordinate with CEREO.
  • Leveraging CEREO in post-award support is up to the PI, but is often helpful in managing large, interdisciplinary grants. F&A assigned to CEREO for post-award support depends on what role CEREO plays, and can be developed to suit individualized needs.

Coordination and F&A in Post Award Management

There is often a benefit to the PI of large, interdiscipinary projects to have some aspects of their award managed by CEREO. We realize most projects have unique needs, so we are happy to talk with teams about what other types of services CEREO could provide. In general, we are capable of offering an array of post-award support, including:

  • assisting in the coordination and efficient communication of your interdisciplinary team
  • providing administrative support for project planning and management,
  • tracking and submitting travel,
  • organizing workshops or other engagement with project partners.