Research administration services at the Department of Computer Science

The services to the directors of projects at the department include help with administration of contracts, finances and staff. Project managers are supported throughout the duration of a project – from the application stage to the final project report. The office manager at the department is in charge of research contract administration. The bookkeeping and follow-up of external funding is carried out at the campus service unit with close cooperation from the department. Some of the research administration is handled by the planning secretary of HIIT.

The main categories of administration are:

Contracts (handled by the department)

• guidance on application for external funding, support in preparing applications
• support in preparing contracts (outlines for contracts, legal consultation on contracts, circulating the inspection of contracts)
• contract admin (such as circulating contract for signatures inside the university and to the backers, archiving)
• updating specialist databases

Financial administration (mainly at the campus service unit)

• budgets and computations for funding applications
• initiation of projects
• project budgets
• processing of expense invoices (invoices for purchases, travel, their postings, etc) and guidance on invoicing
• invoicing (according to the invoicing schedule of each project)
• reporting to project managers monthly or more often, to the department as agreed
• reporting to backers according to the contract or letter of concession
• support in drawing up expense and pricing calculations

Staff administration (the department)

• employment guidance on project workers for both project managers and project workers
• employment routines (writing employment contracts, reporting to the decision-maker)
• monitoring the salaries (making sure that each project worker’s monthly salary is what was contracted)
• for EU projects, monitoring the working-hour bookkeeping and when necessary reporting to electronic systems and checking paper forms
• the introduction of project workers into the working community (e.g. related to employment – salary, sick leave, insurances, conditions of the contract, etc), introduction to the routines of the department, the sponsor system and appointing a sponsor, the department intranet and web use

Please see the department’s staff pages for more details.

Further information in Chapter D.1. Tutkimuspalvelut (research services) of the university’s quality manual.