CALS Research Division > Proposals & Agreements

Principal Investigator (PI) Status

Faculty members automatically have PI status, but PI status can be requested for academic staff who wish to submit a proposal or serve as PI on an award. Limited PI status can be granted in on a proposal-by-proposal basis, or over a specified or “blanket” time period. Permanent PI status can also be granted by the Graduate School.

One-Time Limited PI Status

One-Time Limited PI Status requests are submitted in conjunction with a specific proposal. The completed Request for One-Time Limited PI Status form should be uploaded to the WISPER record of the associated proposal. A current Curriculum Vitae must also be uploaded in the attachments section. In addition, two approvals need to be created in WISPER.

The first approval is requested of the department chair or director. The approval should be made under the type “Other,” and contain the following text: “Requesting approval of Limited PI Status for the PI named on this record. The request is attached to the record and applies specifically to this proposal.”

The second approval type is “Limited PI Status.” It can only be sent to a division, and should be directed to '07-College of Ag and Life Science'.

Once the approvals are completed, the individual is eligible to serve as PI.

Blanket Limited PI Status

Blanket PI Status enables an academic staff member to maintain PI status for 1-3 years. After completing the Request for Blanket Limited PI Status form, signatures must be obtained from the department chair or director and the documents forwarded to the Dean’s office for review and signature. A current Curriculum Vitae must accompany the request. Blanket PI Status requests are not routed through WISPER.

Permanent PI Status

Requests for Permanent PI Status are sent directly to the Grad School, but an endorsement from the CALS Dean’s office is required. A description of the criteria for permanent status, instructions for submission, and contact information can be found in the Graduate School's detailed memo regarding Permanent Principal Investigator Status.

Useful Links

For more information or assistance regarding PI status, please contact Casey Hillmer, (608) 262-2397, clhillmer@cals.wisc.edu

Advance Account Numbers

PI Advance Award Actions

WISPER, the electronic proposal routing system, can facilitate your request for projects to be set up in advance of the award being received and fully executed. After all project details have been collected, and the PI and the Division has signed the Award Signature, the items are in place for the Advance Account Numbers request to occur.

You will want to make the Advance Account Numbers request via an approvals request in WISPER. Please see the WISPER page to guide you through the initial steps necessary to make this request (logging in, creating a record, attaching documents, signing a record, etc.).

To request an approval for an Advance Account, select the Approvals tab in WISPER. Click the Add Approval button and use the drop down menu for approval type to select "Request Advance Award." You may enter additional justification into the Approval text box.

Division Advance Award Actions

To approve the Advance Award request, you must login and select the WISPER record. Please see the WISPER page to guide you through the initial steps necessary (logging in, creating a record, approving a record, signing a record, etc.).

To approve an Advance Account request, select the Approvals tab and locate the requested approval for the "Request Advance Award Setup." Click on the Details link to route you to the approval detail page. Read the details, you may make comments if necessary, and click the "Approve" button.

Select the Division Action tab. Check to make sure the division award signature has been executed. Scroll to the bottom and click the "Validate to Req Adv Account." Clicking this button will validate that all the required information is included in the record before it is routed to RSP. If the validation process returns any errors, correct these errors and repeat the validation process until the record passes through the Advance Account validation.

When the record is complete and has been reviewed to the Division's satisfaction, select the "Request Advance Account of SPO" button. You will be redirected to a new page; click the "Process Record" button. Your request has been submitted to RSP for processing. Award and project information will be reported to you via email.

Useful Resources

Request an Advance Account reference
Request an Advance Account reference

For more information or assistance regarding Advance Account Numbers, please contact Sandy Fowler, (608) 262-3947, sfowler@cals.wisc.edu.

Cost Share

More detailed information, specifically a "How We Capture Effort" chart and a Effort Reporting and Cost-Sharing Update, is also available as a printable document.

Cost-sharing (or matching) on grants has programmatic, administrative, and financial consequences for the University of Wisconsin and is strongly discouraged unless required by the sponsor. Voluntary commitments to cost-share (a) reduce the flexibility PIs have to conduct other research, when their effort is pledged to specific projects; (b) increase the requirements for auditable record keeping; and (c) have an adverse effect on the University's recovery of F&A (indirect) costs. Moderate mandatory cost-sharing, included in the specific program description, will be approved for most projects.

Payrolling key personnel on the grant is the preferred method to indicate and document effort on new projects. If voluntary cost-sharing is proposed, CALS will approve cost-share of no more than 10% of effort per project for these individuals. PIs should continue to accurately reflect their committed effort on research projects in the proposal budget. CALS will continue to contribute resources toward the performance

Please refer inquiries to Becky Bound, rbound@cals.wisc.edu or Julene Gaspard, jgaspard@cals.wisc.edu.

CALS Research Division

Other Considerations