Dear colleagues,
Various austerity measures, staffing reductions, and policy changes at the university have pushed us to change the way we do research purchasing in MAE. Currently, the majority of our research groups coordinate with our staff to purchase equipment, consumables, and other research materials via eshop or through our portal—this volume of work reflects approximately ~$600k/year in purchasing expenditures across all categories. Our former dedicated purchasing specialist managed capital assets, customs, shipping & receiving, tax exemption, and the abundance of university and college policies governing these purchases.
Our remaining staff team and I have spent the last several weeks preparing to transition our research groups to being able to manage purchasing independently for non-capital asset items. Here's the general timeline, with specific updates to follow regarding each phase of the transition. More detailed information on the transition, timelines, and action items will also be housed on our MAE portal knowledge base later this week.
On
9/25/25 faculty will receive a survey to nominate a group purchasing representative for your lab. That representative may be a grad student or yourself. The group purchasing representative will be responsible for coordinating research consumables/materials, etc purchasing for themself and the rest of the research group
in accordance with university and federal policies. Given that Cornell's systems and policies can be as "clear as mud" to quote one of our constituents, our staff team has been diligently at work preparing training materials to cover the range of policies, circumstances, and tricky situations required to navigate purchasing, as well as engaging with the various systems at the university that are used for this work. Group purchasing reps will be trained by our staff, have access to a Microsoft Teams channel to ask urgent questions, in addition to our ongoing weekly operations office hours on Thursdays (excepting when there's a faculty meeting) and our support portal.
Faculty who don't currently have a PCard will be required to get one: as part of the survey, faculty will be able to set the purchasing limit for their group purchasing representative (max of $4,999). However, certain purchases will only be able to be made by a faculty member and a faculty member only: anything that relates to the long term health of a PIs research portfolio must remain within the PI's control, including data, subscriptions for the whole group/any service or tool intended to outlast an individual research group member, publication costs, etc.
We aim to transition 90% of our research groups to independent lab purchasing by Dec.19th,and continue the transition in January for the remaining groups. Our remaining staff will be able to advocate on behalf of our groups with our central and college offices if/when issues arise, and will assist with sorting out unique situations and problems. Capital asset purchases will continue to be supported by department staff (more on that later).
I will be holding drop-in hours in my office in 130 Upson on Tuesdays from 2:30-4:00pm for faculty to stop by to discuss this or any other emergent issues. Please let me know your questions or any concerns you may have.
Best,