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Principal Investigator (PI) Responsibilities

The PI is responsible for fiscal, programmatic and administrative oversight of the project. Many federal, state, sponsor, and institutional regulations and laws apply to university research. These obligations are part of the proposal certifications.

Ensure all work proposed, conducted and reported is free of falsification, plagiarism, fabrication or other nonscholarly conduct.

Ensure all expenditures are reasonable, allowable under the terms of the award, and allocable to the sponsored project.

Legal, policy and ethical considerations when conducting research responsibly, including legal and policy requirements for export-controlled technologies, restricted data and safeguards.

Records generated from university research are owned by NC State University and must be maintained for a minimum of three years — or longer if required by the sponsor, journal or patent disclosure. Records include all laboratory notebooks, data sets and technical reports.

Promptly disclose new inventions. Intellectual property developed during the course of research can include inventions (i.e., patents), trademarks, industrial designs and geographic indicators of source, as well as literary and artistic works.

Contact the Office of Federal Relations before communicating with federal government representatives (e.g., members of Congress).

Maintain a current conflict of interest disclosure identifying interests in entities who sponsor, participate in or may benefit from each project.