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PHHP Resources College of Public Health and Health Professions
Governance Overview

Research Participant Payment

Policy for Research Participant Payment (RPP) in the College of Public Health and Health Professions.

  1. All projects with RPP must have Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval.
  2. All project personnel must have the proper security roles and have completed the necessary training.  For a list of security roles and required training, see Appendix A.
  3. Complete the Study Fund Request (SFR) page under the UF Research Participant Payments module in PeopleSoft. For a step-by-step guide to creating an SFR, please visit the UF CFO website.
    • Each SFR must be limited to research participant payments that will be utilized within two months.
    • No single SFR shall request more than 100 gift cards or participant payments at one time and shall not exceed a total of $2,000 at one time.
    • The request should be limited to the cards that will be reasonably used in the next two months
    • “Cash” will only be issued when required by the IRB protocol or study design.   Zelle, ACH, or reloadable bank cards are the preferred form of participant payment.
  4. Submit your SFR to your Post-Award Research Administrator (RA) for review.
    • Note: If the SFR uses department managed funds (overhead, start-up, pilot funding, etc.) submit a Purchase Approval Request (PAR) through the PHHP PAR portal. This will be reviewed as a normal procurement request and routed to your department administrator for approval in Peoplesoft.  The department administrator will forward their approval to the appropriate post award research administrator to show their approval of the purchase.
  5. The PHHP RA will forward the SFR to the University Research Participant Payment Office for review and approval. Once approved:
    • Cash payments will be routed back to the department through the myUF Marketplace.
    • Gifts cards will be available for custodians to pick up with the University RPP office.
    • E-payments will be forwarded with instructions from the University RPP office to the gift card custodian.
  6. Management of Physical Payment: Cash and loaded gift cards must be:
    • Stored onsite in a locked drawer/cash box/safe and segregated by research funding project.
    • Access to the payments should be limited only to the custodian.
    • Payments must be logged in a separate log unique to each study.
    • All payments must be logged and must correspond with the number of participants.
  7. Management of E-Payments: Electronic payments, such as Zelle payments or ACH processes, are only available once the participant payment is logged in the UF Peoplesoft study log and approved by the RPP fiscal team. As such, they do not need to be stored in a locked drawer.
  8. RPP Close Out:
    • It is the responsibility of the PI to ensure that all unused RPPs are returned to the University RPP office. This will need to be within 30 days of the close out of the funding source or within 60 days of the end of the IRB protocol.
    • The post-award research administrator can pull the appropriate study fund reconciliation report to record all outstanding payments to assist the lab with finding outstanding payments for reconciliation.  

Lost or Misused Payments

If there has been an accident or an error in the management of the RPPs by the study team resulting in the loss or misuse of the RPP, the PI will be responsible for covering the costs from an appropriate, unrestricted, funding source at the time of the discovered issue. 

Variances from the Policy

At any time, if there is to be a variance from this stated policy, the request will be addressed to the College’s Office of Research for consideration.  The request must be emailed and include:

  1. A summary of the situation
  2. The part of the policy that you are requesting to alter
  3. The suggested risk management plan for handling the funds or situation in another manner 

Additional training

Additional training guides and information are available at the following sources:

Appendix A

Team Members and Roles

For the optimal care of the Research Participant Payments (RPP), the care team would be made up of the following:

  • Principal Investigator (PI): Faculty member who is the leader of the study.  This individual is ultimately responsible for the conduct and management of the research study.  Responsibilities include ensuring that all gift cards are appropriately safeguarded, issued, logged, and returned according to the policies and procedures required by the University of Florida and the sponsor providing the funding for the study.
    • Security Role: UF_FI_RPP_VIEWER or UF FI_RPP_PROCESSOR
  • Study team: those who are conducting the research project under the guidance and management of the PI. This team may be composed of professional staff such as a research coordinator, other faculty, and/or graduate and undergraduate students as required by the research study design. The study team is responsible for issuing the payments to the research participants and for entering their participation in the RPP log in myUFL.edu.  This will also be the first person that the department contact will reach out to with questions or concerns about the research participant payments.
    • Security Role: UF FI_RPP_PROCESSOR
  • Grant Core Department Contact: The PHHP Research Core Reconciliation Team, led by the Accounting Specialist (currently Natalie Chamberlain), is available to serve as the Department Contact for the Study Fund Requests.  This person is trained in how to input the Study Fund Request, can assist study teams with the entry and management of the request, and serves as the back-up contact if there are concerns with the processes and requests if the study team members are unavailable.
    • Security Role:  FI_RPP_PROCESSOR
  • Department Security Administrator (DSA): the individual who manages requests to grant or remove access to information security roles within the university’s enterprise resource planning system (ERP), currently myUFL (PeopleSoft). The appropriate DSA overseeing the study or employment (based on the status of the individual as student or employee) would be responsible for the review of training and mentorship of the individual they assign the roles to.  
  • The Department Administrator is the Director or Manager in the department who has the financial responsibility and authority to authorize the appropriate funding source.  There are no roles required for this position, but they will be the appropriate source through the Purchase Approval Request app.
  • The Post-Award Research Administrator (RA) will serve as the financial approver for the study fund, ensuring that the charges are applied to the correct project, allowable, and available.
    • Security Role: UF_FI_RPP_SFR_APPROVER

General Required Training

The UF system offers institutional training for all team members so that they can better understand the process.  The College of PHHP expects that all team members take the following courses before the DSA assigns any Research Participant Payment security role:

  • RSH320: Research Participant Payments for Fiscal Administrators
  • IRB 803, IRB training course
  • PRV800, HIPAA and Privacy
  • PRV804, Protecting Social Security Numbers and Identity Theft Prevention