Policy on PI Status

The status of Principal Investigator (PI) or program director (PD) is granted automatically as a matter of privilege to tenured and tenure-track faculty, regular faculty on the research and "practice of" tracks, and select senior administrators. All other appointments must receive permission from their deans or the Provost. Those who wish to be co-PIs must meet the same criteria as PIs and PDs. The Duke Policy on PI Status is found in the Faculty Handbook.

If a funding mechanism is designed to support individual graduate students, such as NSF's Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Program, a eligible faculty member, usually the student's advisor, must serve as the PI and the student is listed on the proposal as a co-PI. This is the one exception to the policy.

Securing PI Status

Permission to serve as a PI or PD may be granted by the applicant's dean. In schools without departments, such as Divinity or Environment, a letter should be prepared by the Dean which approves PI status for the prospective PI. The letter should clearly state if PI status is being awarded for the current proposal only or if permission extends to any of the applicant's future proposals. A sample letter is provided in Forms.

The letter should be addressed to:

Judith Dillon, Director

Office of Research Support

Duke University

Campus Box 104010

When the prospective PI is from a department, program, institute or center in one of the Schools, the department chair or the director of the program/institute/center must prepare a letter of request to the appropriate dean or the Provost if the PI is associated with a University center.

The Dean may simply endorse the letter of request and forward it to ORS at the address above, or, if preferred, prepare an original letter. Letters approving PI status are internal documents and will not be forwarded to sponsors.

Outside Collaborators and PI Status

Outside collaborators (non-Duke personnel) may not be listed as co-PIs on Duke proposals. An outside collaborator is not a Duke faculty member and does not "automatically" have PI status nor would he or she have an on-going contractual relationship with Duke. The reason for not allowing this, however, goes beyond these two issues to the contractual relationships between Duke and its sponsors. The institutional signature on a proposal, indicates compliance with the terms and conditions of the grant if an award is made. The signature also certifies that the University - and its PIs - are in compliance with numerous federal regulations such as the use of human and animal subjects, misconduct in science, conflict of interest, lobbying, affirmative action, cost accounting standards, to name a few. Signing a proposal that lists outside collaborators as co-PIs would imply that Duke can certify compliance for other institutions and their faculty members when clearly we cannot. Consequently, we require that outside collaborators be recognized in other ways in a proposal. Alternatives for working with and recognizing the key roles of faculty from other institutions include collaborative proposals, subcontracts and consultancies.