The Glossary of Research Terms is updated regularly as terms and procedures change. We want this site to be a resource to you so if you find any broken links or have suggestions, please email the A&S Research Office or call 852-2658.

ADA - Abbreviation for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Attestation and Disclosure Form (ADF) - The U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) amended its Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) Regulation effective August 24, 2012. In order to fully comply with PHS’s new regulation, UofL has developed the ADF. If you plan to apply for funding from a PHS agency (directly or flowing thru another entity), you must comply with the new FCOI regulations. Please note that some non-federal sponsors have chosen to follow PHS regulations and therefore require compliance. Before a PI can submit a proposal to any of the PHS agencies, all named project personnel must have a completed ADF on file. To request the ADF form, please send an email to COIOFF@louisville.edu.

F&A - Facilities & Administrative Costs reimburse for the real costs associated with performing research that are not specifically allocable to a single project.  Such costs include utilities, buildings and facilities costs, information technology infrastructure, department and central administrative costs associated with managing externally funded projects and libraries.

HSC - Abbreviation for the Health Sciences Campus, home to the University’s healthcare programs. The HSC is located in downtown Louisville.

HSPPO - Abbreviation for the Human Subjects Protection Program Office - (research involving human subjects including surveys, and may include work involving data sets, cell lines, or protected health information).

Institutional Base Salary (IBS) includes a faculty member’s base salary and any supplemental pay, but excludes any x-pay. For purposes of salary requests on grants and contracts, the IBS shall be used. Further and as required by federal agency grant guidelines, IBS may not be increased as a result of replacing university salary funds with federal grant funds. For purposes of official time and effort reporting on all grants and contracts, the IBS shall be used exclusively,  Further, the IBS shall be used as the denominator in calculating the proportion, or percent of effort, of an employee’s activity that is allocated to particular federal awards. More information is available on the Office of the University Provost's website.

IRB - Abbreviation for UofL's Institutional Review Board.

Percent Effort - It is incumbent upon each faculty member not to commit effort to sponsored programs in excess of those activities approved within the Faculty Workload Agreement (FWLA) without prior approval to amend the committed sponsored workload.  This is intended to minimize the risk of committing effort in excess of the percentages of Institutional Base Salary allocated to research, training/instruction or community service per the FWLA. More information is available on the Vice President for Finance's website.

Proposal Clearance Form (PCF) - Proposals for all sponsored activities (including research, training/education, public service, clinical research, and clinical trials/drug/device studies) must be submitted to Sponsored Program Administration or to the Office of Industry Contracts, as appropriate in accordance with the instructions. Every proposal must include the PCF. Download the latest PCF. The instructions for completing the PCF can be found here.

Principal Investigator Research Infrastructure Funds (P-RIF) The fund is equivalent to ten percent (10%) of facilities and administrative costs awarded on extramural grants & contracts. Individual allocations to grant recipients, or principal investigators, are made by transferring funds to the RIF speedtype at the close of the month in which the grant expenditures are made. https://louisville.edu/policies/policies-and-procedures/pageholder/pol-transfer-of-f-a-costs-recovery-indirect-funds

Supplemental Pay is pay that is in addition to the faculty base salary.  Examples of supplemental pay include, but are not limited to, payments for on-going administrative responsibilities, recognition as a distinguished scholar or endowed chair, research supplements, and other extraordinary compensation arrangements where the supplemental pay can be reduced or eliminated as appropriate. (Note: Research supplements may only be added to the IBS upon employment or during the annual salary adjustment process.)  More information is available on the Office of the University Provost's website.

X-pay is paid for the assumption of additional duties on a time-limited, short term basis and is excluded in calculations for retirement or other benefits that are a percentage of salary. More information is available on the Office of the University Provost's website.