Office of Research Integrity & Compliance

Need for Compliance

Federal and other sponsors require institutions receiving financial support to adopt policies and practices to ensure adequate stewardship of resources, ethical and reasonable conduct, proper respect and concern for societal issues, and adequate safety and protections. The responsibilities for compliance may be divided among three categories within the Institution:

  1. Those that apply to the Institution as a whole irrespective of sponsored programs, i.e. affirmative action or occupational safety,
  2. Those that entail accounting and fiscal responsibilities with respect to sponsored programs, i.e. accounting standards, or audit requirements, and
  3. Those that entail special ethical or safety considerations related to the conduct of research, i.e. human subjects research, use of animals, radiation safety, etc. The policies of Responsible Conduct in Research (RCR) help to guide these responsibilities.

Responsibilities in Category 1 are spread throughout the Institution, depending upon the particular compliance issue.

The Office of Sponsored Programs assumes much of the responsibility in Category 2. However, program administrators, Principal Investigators (PIs) or Program Directors (PDs) must assume primary fiscal responsibility for the appropriateness of all charges.

Oversight for the issues in Category 3 includes mandated committees such as the Institutional Review Board (IRB), the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), and others, but responsibility, ultimately, falls on Principal Investigators (PIs) and Project Directors (PDs) to get the appropriate reviews, approvals and permits.

UAA Research Integrity & Compliance Committees

The following committees deal with research requirements in their respective area:

The Office of Research Integrity & Compliance (ORIC) also works with Environmental Health and Safety/Risk Management Support (EHS/RMS) to ensure lab safety and other areas of research site compliance.

Export Control

University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) faculty, staff, students, and affiliates (including non-UAA consultants, collaborators, etc.) must comply with all applicable export laws and regulations. These guidelines specifically address the conduct of university activities subject to any of the following: the Arms Export Control Act, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the Export Administration Act, the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), and all economic and trade sanctions administered and enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Activities subject to export controls include, but are not limited to the transfer of controlled information, materials, software, technology or assets to foreign countries or to foreign nationals in the United States.

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