- Principal Investigators and other faculty in Professorial, Professional Research, and Management titles who are paid on federal or federal flow-through funds are required to certify their own effort. The certifier must have first-hand knowledge of the work performed and the ability to make a reasonable estimate of the effort expended on each sponsored project. Staff who are paid from federal or federal flow-through funds may certify their own effort if they have first-hand knowledge of the work they performed. Effort reports for other employees must be certified by a Principal Investigator (PI) or other responsible official.
- PIs should not certify the effort reports of other faculty members, even if the faculty member worked on one or more of the PI’s projects. Effort reports must be certified by a person with first-hand knowledge of all the activities of the person for whom the certification is made. It is rare that one faculty member will be aware of all the activities of another faculty member, therefore it is generally inappropriate for one faculty member to certify for another.