This track focuses on key components of understanding allowable costs, maintaining accurate effort reporting, and preparing for audits. It also addresses facilities and administrative (F&A) considerations and the full project closeout process to ensure compliance and proper completion of financial responsibilities.

This track covers essential areas of oversight such as IRB and IACUC requirements, conflict of interest management, and export controls. It also includes guidance on subrecipient monitoring, as well as processes related to rebudgeting and carryover to ensure ongoing compliance throughout the life of a project.

This track highlights core aspects of working with clinical trials and industry collaborators. It emphasizes the contracting process, maintaining billing compliance, and managing data sharing requirements that support successful and compliant research partnerships.

This track is designed to cover all non-financial activities related to sponsored projects from the period immediately after an award has been received through final sponsor reporting. Early career professionals would benefit from sessions on topics including budget set-up, regulatory compliance, managing financial conflict of interest, effort reporting, sponsor prior authorizations (regulations and requests), preparing and submitting progress reports, and final scientific and invention reporting. Advanced sessions could take deeper dives into these areas and also explore nuances within these areas by focusing on specific sponsor and award mechanisms.

This track provides an opportunity to engage current and future leaders of finance in training and conversations about managing diverse teams of grant accountants, A/R specialists, IT groups, and costing experts. Sessions could include professional development of leadership skills, strategies, and approaches to change management, strategic planning, and project management. Additionally, leadership sessions on organizational structures, managing complex personality types, management, and leadership styles, building team cohesion, crisis management, and mentoring may be of interest to this group of professionals.

This track should consist of sessions and panel discussions to provide advanced training and stimulate conversation on complex, pressing challenges facing finance specialists and senior financial leaders. Topic areas may include managing F&A and fringe benefit rate development and negotiations, managing A/R, ERP system implementations, and upgrades, and creating, managing, and refining chart of accounts, financial close-out projects, data migration for new and upgraded IT systems, service center rate development and maintenance, policy and procedure development, collaborating with Central finance, and petty cash management.