Compliance

In both the pre-award and award administration phases of a grant, there may be many compliance items that must be addressed during the lifecycle of the award. Below are links to the various university offices that could be involved with compliance for research proposals. The Office of Research Services (ORS) will also assist in coordinating with OU’s Legal Office, should aspects of your negotiations or agreements call for their involvement.

Prior to proposal routing, the PI should obtain clearance from the Institutional Biosafety Committee/Environmental Health and Safety Office (sometimes done together) and the Radiation Safety Office (if DNA, biohazards, or radioisotopes being involved in your research). This is done every time a proposal is submitted; approval is proposal specific.

At proposal submission, most sponsors allow an indication of ‘Pending’ for IRB- and IACUC-related issues, and the approval for those is required prior to awards being finalized (be sure to confirm this in the sponsor’s  guidelines). Sponsors that allow submission of Pending may also have requirements for other related documents on human or animal research as part of the submission package.

Some of the offices involved in compliance for sponsored research include:

• Institutional Review Board
• Office of Compliance
• Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee
• Institutional Biosafety Committee
• Export Controls
  • Memo - Research Security (PDF)
  • High Risk Policy (PDF)[CCG10]
• Office of Technology Commercialization
• Radiation Safety Office
• Environmental Health and Safety Office

Agency Training and Disclosure Requirements

Federal agencies require all Principal Investigators (PIs), Co-PIs, and other senior/key personnel on proposals and awards to complete specific training and disclosures. Some requirements also extend to other research team members (students, postdocs) depending on the funding agency. These typically include Research Security, Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), Financial Conflicts of Interest (FCOI), Other Support, and other compliance requirements. A summary of these requirements can be found here: Federal Agency Training and Disclosure Requirements (Updated September 2025).

NIH Other Support Training Requirement

Effective October 1, 2025, NIH requires recipients to provide training to all faculty and researchers identified as Senior/Key Personnel on the requirement to disclose all research activities and affiliations (active and pending) in Other Support (see Other Support form). This new training requirement builds on existing policy (see NIH Grants Policy Statement (GPS), Section 2.5.1 "Just-in-Time Procedures") and is intended to strengthen compliance with NIH disclosure requirements.

All faculty and researchers identified as Senior/Key Personnel on an NIH proposal must complete the training prior to proposal submission. Senior/Key Personnel on existing awards must complete the training prior to submission of their Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR).

The training is available through OU’s Navex Disclosure Management System. If you would like to voluntarily complete the training, please contact coi@ou.edu to be added to the campaign.  

For additional information on Other Support requirements, please refer to: https://grants.nih.gov/grants-process/write-application/forms-directory/other-support

iThenticate

Researchers at The University of Oklahoma (OU) on all campuses have access to iThenticate, a web-based application that enables authors to compare their own manuscripts, grant proposals, and other scholarly writing against web and scholarly publications to check for similar or duplicate content. iThenticate also provides an AI writing detection indicator to provide insight as to whether the submission contains AI-generated content.

For further information, please visit: https://ou.edu/research-norman/research-support/research-integrity