What is Effort Certification?  Effort is the time individuals spend on an activity, expressed as a percentage of all the time they spend on JSU job duties.

A sponsored project is activity that is funded by a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement under which there is a scope of work, a specific budget, and specified terms and conditions. It requires detailed financial accountability and compliance with the sponsor’s terms and conditions.

If an individual works on a sponsored project, they are required to assure the sponsor that: 1) They did, in fact, devote effort to the project at a level that corresponds with how they were paid from the project, and 2) They’ve met their commitments to the project, regardless of whether the sponsor provided salary support.

Effort certification is the university’s means of providing this assurance to sponsors. To certify effort, faculty and academic staff will review an after the fact statement or report that shows the sources from which they were paid on sponsored projects.

The JSU ECRM (Effort Certification and Reporting Module) system will be used to certify effort.