Non-employee Research Affiliates

Purpose:

To share policies and procedures for creating Non-employee Research Affiliate appointments, including visiting scholars, visiting researchers, unpaid research fellows, and unpaid postdocs.

Relevant Definitions:

Research Affiliates: a formal designation given to a non-employee researcher or scholar who is temporarily in residence at UT Austin and needs access to university systems as part of their collaborative work.

May be appointed using any of these job profiles:
- Research Affiliate – Visiting Researcher/Scholar (A006)
- Research Affiliate Senior Research Fellow (A012)
- Research Affiliate Research Fellow (A011)
- Research Affiliate Postdoctoral (A010)

Research Affiliates need to be sponsored by a faculty member within a department who will take responsibility for the visitor and serve as a point of contact
Research Affiliate privileges are added as Job Classifications via the Workday BP. (See Step 13 of the WIG.)
Research Affiliates meeting the following criteria require approval by the OVPR prior to being appointed:

Will be in residence for more than 14 days
Will conduct work in a research lab or will conduct research-related activity using UT facilities and resources
Will be assigned an Affiliate EID or Member EID
Will be appointed to a temporary unpaid research affiliate position per HOP 7-1020 (Research Titles)

VSVR: Visiting Researcher or Visiting Scholar; one type of research affiliate appointee; usually researchers/scholars from corporations or other academic institutions who are self-funded or independently funded by a third-party source. Visitors typically initiate request for nomination and collaborate on research that may benefit their own research endeavors in addition to furthering the University’s mission.

OVPR: The Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Endeavors; primary office overseeing research-related employment and nonemployee research affiliates.

Visual Compliance: The outside vendor web tool UT uses to ensure UT departments do not knowingly initiate ties to individuals or entities of concern to the U.S. government.

Process:

Make sure your Research Affiliate has or creates a UT EID.
Follow the OPVR’s Nonemployee (Unpaid) Research Affiliates (Visiting Researchers and Scholars) webpage instructions on how to appoint a Research Affiliate.
1. If pre-approval from OVPR is required, submit the Nonemployee Research Affiliate Request for new or renewing nonemployee research affiliate appointments. Note: Pre-approval is not required for renewals when the research affiliate is continuing in the same position, and there has been no break in service greater than 6 months.
  1. UT Sponsor: Faculty member who is sponsoring the visitor.
  2. UT Organization Host: Department Chair. If the Department Chair is the UT Sponsor, then the Host will be Assoc. Dean Rob Crosnoe.
2. Run a Visual Compliance check:
  1. For access to Visual Compliance see Authorizations
  2. To run a Visual Compliance check (from VPR):
    1. Log in and, click on Restricted Party Screening (RPS).
    2. Enter the name of the person (check spelling against an official document such as a passport).
    3. Enter the information you have available (address, former university/employer, etc.,) but most importantly the country of citizenship.
    4. In the Comment section, add the visitor's name/EID, department, and the name of the sponsoring professor. (This is important because Visual Compliance retains these searches and will send you an email if that person (or a person with a similar name) gets added to any of the lists and having that reference is useful.)
    5. You can search first by using Fuzzy Logic 2.
    1. 1. If there are no problems, you can proceed.
      2. If there is a hit, the next step is to search using an Exact Match. Make sure you double check the spelling.
      3. If you get a positive hit, please forward to David Ivey, University Export Controls Officer.
  3. Save your search results as a PDF.
3. Upon receiving approval from the OVPR for the nonemployee research affiliate position, issue the candidate a Non-Employee University Affiliate offer letter and the Non-Employee Research Affiliate Agreement. The agreement must be signed by the candidate, a representative from the candidate’s home organization, the UT Administrative Host, and the UT Sponsor.
4. Request a Background Check for the Research Affiliate prior to initiating the Workday BP.
5. Note: Although the OVPR’s detailed Workday instructions are useful, especially with respect to OVPR requirements, do NOT upload a copy of the Research Affiliate’s ID to the Workday BP.
Use the Hire WIG to add the Research Affiliate to Workday. You will want to hire into a JM sup org (JM instructions start on p.2 of WIG)
1. As mentioned above, privileges are added as Job Classifications – descriptions of the 4 options are included in the Contract Contingent Worker WIG (p.2).
2. The following items must be attached to the BP:
  1. Signed offer letter – Research Titles Offer Letter Templates
  2. Signed Non-Employee Research Affiliate Agreement
  3. Visual Compliance Report PDF (see 2.b.iii.)
  4. Approval email from OVPR
3. Please add Comments explaining you are creating a Research Affiliate appointment and mention the sponsoring faculty member.
  1. If you did Not include this information in the "Assignment Details" section of the BP, then you Must include the following information in the comments as well:
    1. Visitor's Nationality: (insert nationality)
    2. Current Affiliation: (insert external organization)
    3. Research Activities: (insert title of research)
    4. Background check clear as of (insert date)
    5. Visual Compliance cleared as of (insert date).

Purpose:

Relevant Definitions:

Process:

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