The BEST Region serves the Rausser College of Natural Resources, the Division of Biological Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, and related Organized Research Units, museums, and field stations in the biological sciences.
The BEST Region is under the direction of Arash Komeili, Professor, Plant & Microbial Biology, Regional Associate Dean, BEST Region. Operational direction is under Maya Serban, Regional Director who assumed the (interim) role from Adam Berke in February 2022.
During the 2020-21 academic year, the BEST Region built a stronger and more collaborative approach to processes handled by Research Administration (RA) and Human Resources (HR). A highlight of the year was the Postdoc Fellowship Improvement Committee, which finalized an end-to-end process guide for managing Postdoc Fellowship appointments. This improved the collaboration and efficiency by which HR and RA cooperate on managing fellowship appointments. As a part of this transformative effort, the Payroll Lead, Diana Zhang created a postdoc calculator that can be used for any postdoc with more than a single appointment and accurately determine stipend allocations. This tool has been adopted across all regions in BRS and is being looked at for UC-wide implementation.
Also during FY21, Purchasing & Reimbursements approved more than 16,000 requisitions, representing more than $62.5 million in purchases, with an average approval time under 2-days.
BEST’s Research Administration implemented quarterly closes and long-term projections requirements that led to improved and proactive fund management. Awards under management included more than $234M in research awards received from FY'21 from 513 proposals.
In FY22, BEST will fully regionalize new employee onboarding to include all titles served in the region. By regionalizing, it is hoped this will expedite the time it takes to onboard a new Berkeley employee within the campus departments BEST serves.
The region will also increase the number of auto-approved requisitions through training and collaboration with regional clients.
Finally, BEST is seeking to improve the training and partnership with their control units regarding Academic Non-Senate titles. The first step will be an Academic Personnel Boot-Camp, planned for first quarter, 2022.
