Resources

Are you working with a non-Berkeley research collaborator – someone based at another university or external partner?

If so, you might want to consider if your external collaborator should become a Berkeley Affiliate. This is an HR action that establishes a non-employee relationship. There are two key benefits – formalizing the collaboration and allowing the external collaborator the opportunity to establish a CalNet Affiliate ID.

Is your external collaborator a non-US citizen? Even if your research is exempt from export control, the Affiliate is not. In addition to the standard HR action, you will also need to work with Export Control to align with two mandates: (1) Restricted Party Screening (RPS) and (2) Deemed Exports & Data Access. U.S. regulations require us to verify UC is not providing resources or access to individuals or entities on federal restricted lists (policy here). In addition, we must confirm Affiliates will not have access to pre-existing, export-controlled background technology, sensitive third-party data, or restricted equipment during the appointment.

Note: If your research relies on P4/confidential data and your external collaborators need to access this data, you must establish CalNet Affiliate IDs for your collaborators to access secure Berkeley systems.

If you are starting conversations about a specific research project and potential fund source, reach out to IBSI for initial discussions to help navigate the early pre-award stage.

A few actions to note:

• Take a look at the guidance for all major steps throughout a research ‘grant’ life cycle.
• We will want to engage sooner rather than later with our Pre-Award Research Administrator. The Pre-Award RA can help with accurate budget estimates, particularly for staffing costs, IDCs, and other Berkeley costs.
• We will want to understand early if the funding will be from a philanthropic partner or gift or if it will be a sponsored research project. The IDC rates vary based on gifts vs. sponsored research/contracts.
• We will want to engage with our Intellectual Property & Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA) team early if the funding involves potential industry partners.

Once you know you are ready to prepare a proposal, you will work with your Pre-Award RA to submit the proposal through our Special Projects Office (SPO).

A few actions to note:

• If you are submitting a Letter of Intent (LOI), you most likely do not need to go through the SPO intake process unless the LOI requires Institutional Sign-Off. It’s good to confirm with your Pre-Award RA.
• Be familiar with the Special Projects Office Principal Investigator Checklist as this guides all requests for documentation/actions during any proposal phase.
• As soon as the research team has a link or email regarding the funding opportunity, the Faculty or support staff should share with the designated Pre-Award RA to review the requirements and flag any budget or timing considerations.
• As soon as possible but at least 10 days before proposal deadline, the Faculty or support staff must submit the SPO intake form to the pre-award RA and SPO.
• Pre-award RA will enter the proposal into Berkeley Phoebe system for tracking.
• The research team should meet with Pre-award RA as soon as possible to discuss the scope, timing, and budget expectations for the proposal. The Pre-award RA can build the Budget based on input from the research team and UC Berkeley staffing, IDC, and other requirements. The research team will be responsible for agreeing on a final Budget and preparing the Budget Justification.
• The Pre-award RA will help the team build a SPO review timeline to ensure all steps are feasible and completed by the proposal deadline.

Doing research on behalf of UC Berkeley? Here are a few relevant Berkeley policies, guidelines, and references to familiarize yourself with as you navigate this system:

• Roles and Responsibilities-Protection of Institutional Information and IT Resources
• Data and IT Resource Classification Standards – See description and visual aid
• Data Classification Protection Levels
• Minimum Security Standards
• UC Electronic Security Policy

In addition to general Berkeley resources above, here are a few specific to research-related activities:

• Research Data Security: Protecting Human Subjects’ Identifiable Data
• Committee for Protection of Human Subjects Data Security
• In addition to IBSI staff, Berkeley Research support teams include:
  • Library Data Services Program
  • Research IT
  • DLab
  • Research Data Management Program

We work with a wide range of data for our research – from web-scraping public data to in-depth interviews – and this data ranges in terms of its sensitivity, risk, and security requirements.

Berkeley provides high-level guidance on how to classify data (see description and visual aid), but this classification often depends on context and can evolve over time. That’s why it’s useful to consult others:

• Berkeley CPHS can advise on data classification at the various points of the research life cycle to ensure the IRB protocol defines data management requirements
• Berkeley Privacy Office ([email protected]) can help assess risk based on data definition and context, such as local data laws.

Depending on classification, you can use different collaboration tools with different security requirements:

Have a question about which collaboration tools to use? Reach out to Haas Research IT.

About to start a research project? In the middle of one? It’s always a good time to think through and document – what data do you need, will you collect, will you extract, will you share, store, analyze, and publish? At different points in time in the research life cycle, this data can vary between sensitive data that needs to be protected (such as P3-P4) and public data (P1).

The RDM team can help advise you on your Data Management Plan.

You might consider tools like DMPTool.

Do you know who owns what data and who should have access to it when? A Data Management Plan is a good overall document, but often these specifics need to be defined formally in Data Use Agreement (DUA) and Data Sharing Agreements (DSA).

All DSAs and DUAs are created in consultation with the Berkeley Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA).

When you use the relevant and appropriate Berkeley systems, there is support to both back-up data and ensure responsible destruction of data.

• Back-up: Encrypted versions of the data are securely backed-up to cloud storage.  Unencrypted versions of the data are not allowed to leave the servers. Backup processes are managed by the system administrators, and server users should not perform additional backups.
• Destruction: Governance documents – such as a Data Management Plan and/or a Data Sharing Agreement – will detail any data deletion or destruction requirements. The Haas data servers use a secure file deletion program to overwrite files. In the case of data originally sent in physical form, such as external HDD, thumb drives, or DVDs, the drives are reformatted, and original DVDs are shredded. Cloud storage backups of deleted files will be removed after 90 days. Haas uses SDelete, a C-2 compliant method of securely deleting files

Have a question about how your data is or can be backed-up or how you can delete sensitive data? Reach out to Haas Research IT.

One benefit of understanding and working within the UC Berkeley data management systems – in the event of unusual activity or a breach, there is a system of support behind you.

When Haas systems and resources are used for data management, the Haas system administrators can monitor and log all traffic to and from Haas servers. In the event of unusual activity, Haas system administrators can support you with initiating an Incident Response Plan that aligns with campus requirements.

Please note, teams operating outside standard UC Berkeley data management guidelines and policy will be responsible for their own Incident Response Plan and Management.

Have a question about how to prepare or respond to an incident? Reach out to Haas Research IT.

Research support may be funded by different sources, including gifts, grants, contracts and one research project could have funding from many of these sources. Before you get started with any hiring, understand the rules of the funding source you will use. Consider the following:

• What is the budget and timeline available for this action? Is there sufficient budget and timeline to cover the action? Determine how and when to alert the funder to:
  • Changes in budget categories – Some funders require advance notification and approval before re-allocating funds across specific fund categories.
  • Changes in timeline – Some funders may accept no-cost extensions or other changes in proposed timelines. Some may not. These timelines can have big impacts on your actions.
• What chartstring will you use for this action? Will you use one chartstring to cover the full action or will you need to use multiple chartstrings?
• Whose approval do you need? There are often multiple layers of approvals required:
  • Principal Investigators (PIs) are responsible for overall management of their research funding. The PI is ultimately responsible for approving any budget and use of a chartstring they manage.
  • Different chartstrings may have different approvers within Berkeley systems depending on where the funding sits. Understand who will see and approve this action within Berkeley’s systems and understand what is needed for approvals to go smoothly. This can include your Berkeley Buyer and Research Administrators.
• What rules do you need to consider? Read your funding award carefully and consider relevant Berkeley rules.
  • For all federally-funded purchases ≥$10,000 (including tax and shipping) & non‐federally funded purchases ≥$100,000 (excluding tax, but including shipping), expect to complete UCOP Source Selection & Price Reasonableness (SSPR) Justification Form and assess and implement the requirements for competitive selection.

For research-related actions, there are often governance-related materials that complement, support and/or inform a research-related hire:

• Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol – Determine status of IRB protocol and how this action will relate to the IRB protocol. See Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects (CPHS) information here.
• Data Use and Sharing Agreement(s) – Determine status of any necessary Data Use and/or Data Sharing Agreement(s) that may inform how Institutional Data is collected, shared, stored, used under this action. See Berkeley Intellectual Property & Industry Alliance guidance here.

These materials may be developed in parallel to hiring research support – but consider how and when they will be complete and inform activities related to this action.

For each research-related hire, consider the Scope of Work (SOW) and related budget.

• Develop Scope of Work using the Simple or Complex Template
  • Highly recommend reviewing all questions in the Complex SOW template since these are questions that may be asked throughout the approval process by different approvers in the Berkeley system. The more complete the information in the SOW, the easier the review and approval process may be.
  • For SOW that involves data collection, access, storage, sharing, analysis, the SOW should define the P-level and data management requirements (reference here and here for now). This should align with any IRB protocol and Data Use and/or Sharing Agreement(s).
  • For SOW that involves data collection, access, storage, sharing, analysis, the SOW needs to include the additional Appendix – Data Security Plan – with reference to any necessary IRB protocol(s) and Data Use and/or Sharing Agreement(s).
• Develop a Budget – Keep in mind that Berkeley works in USD. That means if funding sources and/or vendors work in other currencies, the budget should account for potentially all currencies to track when currency fluctuations may affect the overall budget – both what’s available to Berkeley and what is available to the vendor. But vendors should understand – payments from Berkeley are made in USD.
• All travel expenses that Berkeley will cover must be included in the vendor SOW and budget.

Check – is there still alignment between scope, budget, period of performance and the selected chartstring(s)?

If you are ready to hire research support – for data collection, analysis, field management, or any other research-support activities – ask yourself: are you hiring an employee or a vendor?

To make this determination, review guidance here on California’s ABC test (See UC guidance here) and the Federal Classification Checklist.

To be classified as a vendor/supplier, all three of the following questions must be Yes: (1) worker is free from control and direction of the hiring entity (Berkeley) in connection with the performance of the work, both under contract and in fact, and (2) worker performs work outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and (3) worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation.

If the answer is No to any question, it is likely you should use the Human Resource (HR) process for hiring employees. Note: UC Berkeley does not employ international-based individuals.

• Current UC Berkeley students are hired through the non-academic Student hiring process or the ASE hiring process as relevant based on scope.
• Other employment options include: Employee or Contract Employee (an individual hired and supervised as an employee to provide services under a contract for a specific time period normally no longer than three years) or Limited Term Employment (LTE) (meet temporary and project-focused operational needs for up to 900 hours in 12 months).
• If at least one answer is No but the Employee hire options above do not seem feasible or appropriate, discuss with your HR representative.

If the answer is Yes to all questions, you may use the BearBuy Purchase Order Vendor process for hiring vendors/suppliers – such as data collection firms.

To proceed with hiring a vendor/supplier:

• Review existing suppliers in BearBuy system. If you do not have access to BearBuy, request access or request support from the PI’s faculty assistant.
• Determine if you need to complete a New registration or Update an existing one.

New vendor registration details –  Registration can go smoothly or can take a lot of time. Expect to work closely with your faculty assistant to initiate and with the prospective vendor to complete registration in a timely manner.

• To initiate: Send the following information to your faculty assistant:
  • Contact Email– This is the email UC Berkeley will enter in the Vendor Registration system for you. This is the email where correspondence from UC Berkeley will arrive.
  • Is this a US-based supplier or non-US-based supplier? US-based suppliers include all territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam, etc. A non-US-based supplier is one that is a Foreign National or Entity that has a Foreign Address.
• To complete: Once your faculty assistant has initiated, the supplier/vendor will receive an email from [email protected] requesting them to register as a supplier at UC Berkeley.
  • The email will contain a unique access code and expiration date for this invitation. Invitations are good for 30 days.
  • This email may go directly into the SPAM folder. Be alert! Help your vendor find it and complete it in a timely manner.
  • Have the vendor complete registration as soon as possible and confirm with the faculty assistant over email when the registration form is submitted back to Berkeley.

Update vendor registration details if the vendor is in the system already but address has changed or needs to be added.

Suppliers will provide their Bank Account information and any changes to Bank Account information should be made to existing vendor registration. Vendors should understand their bank’s rules for currency and confirm that Berkeley payments made in USD are received into a USD account.

Note: You cannot start the vendoring process until your selected vendor is registered!

Suppliers/vendors must ensure their activities in connection with the SOW have relevant liability insurance. This liability insurance will ideally be in place when you start the vendoring process. You should ensure your vendor either 1) obtains the relevant liability insurance or 2) determine if you can obtain a waiver.

Obtain Insurance

The vendor/supplier will need to provide an insurance certificate naming “The Regents of the University of California” as an additional insured.

• Please see “UC Insurance Requirements/The Supplier Insurance Guide” for instructions.
• Insurance requirements are based on the degree of risk rather than the dollar amount of the contract and will be reviewed with the Supplier before providing goods and/or services to the university.

If the supplier/vendor does not already have liability insurance, they can purchase liability insurance through CampusConnexions which can be accessed here.

• The cost of liability coverage is $750. The University cannot directly pay for insurance coverage. Since the portal collects sensitive information, Berkeley staff do not have access to the registration form.
• The cost of this insurance can be built into the SOW and the supplier may be reimbursed once the PO is executed if both UC Berkeley and the supplier/vendor agree to incorporate into the SOW and budget.

Waiver of Liability Insurance

If you will use a University Collaborative Agreement and the vendor is a member of the Federal Demonstration Partnership the insurance requirement can be waived (See SPO page here).

For all other vendors:

• The vendor will be asked to accept the following indemnification language without modification: VENDOR NAME shall defend, indemnify and hold THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, its officers, employees and agents harmless from and against any and all liability, loss, expense, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, or claims for injury or damages arising out of the performance of this Agreement, but only in proportion to and to the extent such liability, loss, expense, attorneys’ fees, or claims for injury or damages are caused by or result from the negligent or intentional acts or omissions of VENDOR NAME, its officers, agents or employees.
• If the vendor feels they would require modification, they should consider obtaining Liability Insurance.

For any key personnel involved in the scope of work, the vendor will need to review the COI form here.

If none of the questions apply, supplier/vendor can simply provide a statement saying as much.

You will need to obtain either the COI form(s) or a statement(s) from key personnel stated in the SOW.

The vendor tax documentation requirements for any vendor action are based on the vendor’s citizenship, place of work, and if the vendor is an individual or a firm. Each of these inform which tax documentation must be completed. Note:

• For work done in the US by non-US citizens: GLACIER is a secure online tax compliance software system that collects tax related information from foreign individuals. GLACIER helps determine tax residency status, withholding tax rates, and tax treaty eligibility for the foreign individual. GLACIER also manages foreign national’s paperwork, prepares tax forms, and assists with IRS tax reporting.
• For work done outside the US by non-US citizens: This work is not reportable or taxable in the U.S.

This action is only applicable if your vendor will be working with P3-P4 data (see description and visual aid). So make sure you have a good understanding early about how you, your team, and the IRB(s) are classifying your data and security requirements.

The purpose of Berkeley’s Vendor Security Assessment (VSA) Service is to determine whether a Vendor’s security plan is adequate to safeguard UC systems and data. This relates to how they collect, store, share, analyze, or publish data.

A typical VSA takes 4 – 6 weeks to complete starting from the date the Vendor provides the information requested to perform the VSA. Please plan your hiring timeline accordingly!

At the conclusion of the VSA Service, a report will be provided including an overall risk rating, risks, and recommendations. The ability to proceed with hiring the selected vendor will depend on risk identified in this process – not all recommendations are required to proceed, but some can be and some can be helpful to work on over time.

With ever changing risk in responsible data management, this service can be a great tool for both the Berkeley hiring team and the Vendor.

As detailed above, multiple documents are required to hire a research-related vendor – such as a data collection firm.

To begin process, plan to send your faculty assistant:

• Vender registration – Must be complete/updated – Complete or update vendor registration details.
• Scope of Work Template used to complete a final SOW and budget
  • additional Appendix – Data Security Plan
  • Helpful to include IRB protocol, Data Use and/or Data Sharing Agreement(s) if relevant to include as Appendix
• Consideration of Conflict of Interest – Complete the Conflict-of-Interest form(s) or provide statement there is no conflict of interest.
• Classification Worksheet for Federal Tax Purposes Policy & Form
• If required: UCOP Source Selection & Price Reasonableness (SSPR) Justification Form 
• If required: Complete Vendor Security Assessment

During the process, expect the vendor to be requested to provide:

• Proof of liability insurance (or waiver) – UC Insurance Requirements/The Supplier Insurance Guide
• Tax reporting documentation based on 1) citizenship and 2) place of work and 3) if individual or firm.

This documentation is required to go through the BearBuy purchasing process and ensure approvals within the Berkeley BearBuy system.

Once a Purchase Order is issued, the vendor/supplier can submit invoices for payment.

To submit an invoice, the vendor must be registered in Transcepta.

It is good practice to have the vendor submit deliverables and draft invoice for review and approval before submitting to Trancepta to ensure timely review and acceptance of deliverables and timely approval of invoices in the Trancepta system.

Did you know that several Haas Professors are leaders in the Open Science movement? Haas Professors integrate best practices for open science into research-focused courses, including:

• PHDBA 297B 001 – LEC 001
• PHDBA 297T 003 – LEC 003

Expecting to start a research project or work on one? Start with the UC Berkeley CITI training on protection of human subjects.

Not sure where to start with open science? Start with understanding your goals and the best practices you need to incorporate into your research workflow. For example, if you want to publish in a journal, understand evolving journal requirements and preferences – including study registration, pre-analysis plans, availability of code and data – and build into your workflow at the right times.

• Search Open Science Practices across TOP journals – https://www.topfactor.org/

Learn more about how some disciplines review and track evolving journal practices, such as this summary from development economics.

Looking for examples of published reproducible research led by Haas faculty and co-authors? Review published Data Replication files for recent Haas faculty publications, such as:

• Schroeder, J., & Fishbach, A. (2024). Feeling known predicts relationship satisfaction. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 110, 104559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104559
• Kim G, Adams I, Diaw M, Celly M, Nelson LD, Jung MH (2022) Prosocial spending encourages happiness: A replication of the only experiment reported in Dunn, Aknin, and Norton (2008). PLoS ONE 17(9): e0272434. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272434
• Bachas, P., Gertler, P., Higgins, S. and Seira, E. (2021), How Debit Cards Enable the Poor to Save More. The Journal of Finance, 76: 1913-1957. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13021
• Christensen G, Dafoe A, Miguel E, Moore DA, Rose AK (2019) A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment. PLoS ONE 14(12): e0225883. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225883

Unfamiliar with why research study registration matters? Review this brief explainer and determine which registry is right for you and your study.

Available registries include:

• American Economic Association’s (AEA) registry for randomized controlled trials – https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/
• Open Science Framework (OSF) registry – https://osf.io/
• AsPredicted – https://aspredicted.org/
• Registry for International Development Impact Evaluations – https://ridie.3ieimpact.org/index.php

At the study registration stage? Consider – what are your forecasted or predicted results? How will you know how your actual results compare to these forecasts? If you’re curious about work in this area, check out publications by Haas faculty, including:

• DellaVigna, Stefano, and Devin Pope. 22018. “Predicting Experimental Results: Who Knows What?” Journal of Political Economy 126 (6): 2410–2456. doi:10.1086/699976.
• DellaVigna, Stefano, Devin Pope, and Eva Vivalt. 2019. “Predict Science to Improve Science.” Science 366 (6464): 428–429. doi:10.1126/science.aaz1704.

The Social Science Prediction Platform (SSPP) is a free platform that enables researchers to collect predictions by other academics about the results of their research study. By collecting forecasts, you can compare your findings to other researcher’s priors. Collecting forecasts can frame why your research findings, including null results, are important for changing or confirming the current state of knowledge.

Working toward computationally reproducible research starts during study design and ends with availability of final analysis and underlying data and code. But transparency must be balanced with responsible management of data – and not all data can be made public. Brush up on Berkeley data classification and protection standards and handy visuals or check-in with your IT department!

Understand responsible data management throughout your research life cycle:

• (Many!) Berkeley Data Services – See summary from the Berkeley Data Services Librarian.
• Data collaboration – Working with a team? Review Berkeley’s data collaboration tools. Keep in mind – if you are working with external collaborators and need to share confidential/P4 data, the Secure Research & Data Computing (SRDC) is your Berkeley resource!
• Independent computational reproducibility assessments – Interested in what support Berkeley can offer you for pre-publication reproducibility checks? Haas Xlab is ready to support!

Using Generative AI in your research? UC Berkeley has an AI policy agreement with certain providers to protect UC data and prevent it from being used as a training set. See the campus list of agreements with generative AI companies and corresponding levels of data security, along with the UC Berkeley policy for generative AI.

Are you ready to share your research findings and the underlying data and code? As discussed above, make sure you choose the right site based on the P-level of your data – P1 is public, but P3-P4 cannot be shared as public data. Brush up on Berkeley standards and handy visuals or check-in with your IT department!

P1/Public data sites include:

• UC Berkeley Library Dataverse – https://datasets.lib.berkeley.edu/
• Dryad – https://datadryad.org/
• Research Box – https://researchbox.org/
• Open Science Framework – https://osf.io/

Restricted data sites include:

• Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) – (Log-in with CalNet) – https://www-icpsr-umich-edu.libproxy.berkeley.edu/sites/icpsr/home

University of California and UC Berkeley have several resources for faculty, staff, and students to support open access to research materials.

Check out:

• eScholarship – Set up an account or work with an IBSI delegate to upload your research materials into eScholarship to support open access. You can upload open access versions of published journal articles that remain behind paywalls, conference materials, working papers. This is a great resource to leverage as it also helps us maintain alignment with ADA compliance for published materials.
• Open Access Publishing – Review this resource before you publish! The UC libraries negotiate agreements with scholarly journal publishers to reduce the amount authors must pay when they choose to publish open access. Most agreements offer up to full coverage of the open access fees; others offer a discount. Find journals eligible for UC funding support using our Journal Open Access Lookup Tool. For journals not covered by UC agreements, your campus library may offer funding or discounts.

• UC Berkeley Open Science library guide – At Berkeley, there are various resources to start you on your path towards open, transparent and reproducible research. We rely on many proprietary products in our day-to-day work, but there is no one-size-fits-all way of practicing open science. Be flexible, adaptable and curious in your approach!

• Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) Resources – The BITSS Resource Library contains tools for learning, teaching, and practicing research transparency and reproducibility, including curricula, slide decks, books, guidelines, templates, software, and other tools. All resources are categorized by i) topic, ii) type, and iii) discipline. Filter results by applying criteria along these parameters, such as resources specific to the stage of the research process that you are engaged in, or use the search bar to find what you’re looking for. Follow their BITSS blog – https://www.bitss.org/blog/ – or contact them directly.

• Open Science Framework (OSF) – The OSF provides free online resources for storing your research documents, collecting and analyzing your data, and publishing your work through preprints. The platform makes it easier to centralize research materials and make them public and is integrated with other software, including GitHub and Google Drive. The OSF assigns Global Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) to all files and components of your project, enabling citations. Log in with your Calnet ID to access paid features available through UC Berkeley’s license.

• Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT) – FORRT has a pedagogical library with materials for professors to teach research transparency, a replication hub, and publications on the state of research transparency and open science. FORRT’s replication hub allows researchers to upload their own replications, to view and find previously completed replications, and to access replication templates.

• Bay Area Open Science Group – The Bay Area Open Science Group is a growing community for Bay Area academics and researchers interested in incorporating open science into their research, teaching, and learning. Targeting students, faculty, and staff at UCSF, Berkeley, and Stanford, the goal of the community is to increase awareness of and engagement with all things open science, including open access articles, open research data, open source software, and open educational resources. Through this work the group hopes to connect researchers with tools they can use to make the products and process of science more equitable and reproducible.

Have questions? Reach out to Berkeley staff working in this space.