How to Fill Out and Submit the UAB External Activity Form (PAR)

UAB’s External Activity Pre-Approval Request, known as the PAR form, is how UAB Enterprise employees get written permission before taking on professional work outside the university. You submit it through the myUABResearch cloud platform, and approval from your department chair or dean must be in place before the outside activity begins.¹ Full-time faculty are capped at 20 working days of approved external activity per year, so the details on the form carry real weight.

Who Has to File

The UAB Enterprise Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment Policy applies the PAR requirement to all UAB Enterprise employees before they take on outside professional engagements.¹ In practice, three groups file most often:

Full-time faculty taking on any compensated or uncompensated professional service for an outside entity, including consulting, board service, or teaching elsewhere.
Investigators on funded research. The definition is broad and covers anyone contributing meaningfully to a federally funded project, not just the principal investigator.²
Institutional officials with authority over resource allocation, graduate student assignments, funding, space, salary, or faculty promotions. This group includes the president, provost, vice presidents, deans, chairs, and other administrators identified by the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer.²

External activity means any professional service you perform for an outside entity, paid or not. Consulting, expert witness work, speaking engagements, corporate or nonprofit board service, and ownership interests in a business tied to your field all fall inside the scope. If the work draws on your professional expertise or overlaps with your UAB responsibilities, it belongs in the PAR process.

What to Gather Before You Open the Form

Having your documentation ready before you log in saves time and keeps the request from bouncing back for missing details. Pull the following together first:

The outside entity’s full legal name, its mission or primary business, and your point of contact there.
A specific description of what you’ll be doing. “Consulting” by itself is too vague. Write something concrete, such as “reviewing clinical trial protocols for a pharmaceutical company” or “developing undergraduate curriculum for a community college.”
A time estimate in hours per month or total hours per year. This matters because the 20-day faculty cap excludes vacation, university holidays, and designated time off for nine-month appointees.³
Compensation details, including hourly rates, flat fees, honoraria, or equity. If the activity is unpaid, say so directly.
Any ownership or equity interest in the outside entity, including stock or stock options.
Contracts or offer letters already in hand, so what you enter on the form matches what you’ve agreed to.

Getting Into myUABResearch

Older UAB guidance pointed to the Oracle Self-Service portal. That reference is outdated. External activity requests now live in myUABResearch, UAB’s integrated cloud platform.¹ To open a new request:

Go to the myUABResearch portal through the UAB Office of Research website. System access instructions are on the myUABResearch System Access page.
Log in with your BlazerID and password.
Open the External Activity Pre-Approval Request module. The platform houses several compliance forms, so confirm you’re starting the PAR and not the annual disclosure, which is a related but separate filing.

If you’ve never used myUABResearch, give yourself a few extra minutes for the first login.

Filling Out the Fields That Reviewers Scrutinize

The form asks you to connect your outside work to your UAB role, and that is where most requests stall. Reviewers need to see whether the activity overlaps with your research, teaching, or administrative duties. A blanket “no conflict” with no explanation gives them nothing to work with and tends to come back for revision.

Describe specifically how the outside work relates to what you do at UAB. If you’re consulting for a company whose products you also study in your lab, state that plainly. If the work sits in a completely different field, make that clear too. The point is to give your reviewer enough context to decide without a follow-up round.

One field catches people out: whether the activity uses university resources. UAB policies prohibit using public resources for private financial gain, so if your outside work would involve UAB equipment, lab space, or staff time, you need to disclose it. Even incidental use counts. If you aren’t using any UAB resources, say so directly rather than leaving the field vague.

Submitting, Timing, and Tracking

Once every field is complete, submit the form to route it into the approval workflow. The system sends your request first to your department chair or dean, who evaluates whether the activity presents a conflict requiring a management plan.¹ More complex situations may move up to the Office of the Vice President for Research for additional review.

Expect anywhere from a few business days to two weeks, depending on complexity and reviewer workload. The system sends automated emails when a decision is made or when the reviewer needs more information. You can also check status at any time in the myUABResearch portal to see whether your request is pending, approved, or returned for corrections.

The hard rule: approval must be in place before the external activity begins. Retroactive requests put you in a difficult position with the university, so build the review window into your planning.

If Your Request Is Denied

Faculty whose requests are denied should seek resolution directly through their department chair or dean.³ A denial doesn’t always mean the activity is off the table permanently. Restructuring the arrangement, trimming the time commitment, or addressing a specific conflict can sometimes clear the path for a resubmission.

If Your Request Comes Back for Corrections

A returned form usually means the reviewer couldn’t decide with the information on hand. Common gaps are vague descriptions of the work, missing compensation details, or an unclear link between the activity and your UAB duties. Address the specific items flagged, resubmit through the portal, and the review timeline resets.

The 20-Day Cap Faculty Must Track

Full-time faculty may spend no more than 20 typical working days per year on approved external activities. Vacation days, university holidays, and designated time off for nine-month appointees do not count against the limit.³ That works out to roughly one day every two and a half weeks across a calendar year, so pace your outside commitments.

Keep a running count. Once you approach the cap, any additional request is likely to draw extra scrutiny or be denied outright. If you’re unsure how much time you’ve used, review your approved PAR forms in myUABResearch or check with your department’s administrative office.

Related Filings the PAR Does Not Cover

A few other obligations sit alongside the PAR, and it’s worth knowing where the form stops.

The PAR is a per-activity filing. UAB also requires certain employees, including full-time faculty, investigators, institutional officials, and other designated employees, to review and recertify their financial interest disclosures each year.² The PAR covers a specific new engagement; the annual disclosure confirms that everything previously on file is still accurate. Missing the annual recertification can put your compliance status at risk even when every individual activity has been approved.

Investigators on federally funded research have further disclosure obligations under Public Health Service rules, including thresholds for significant financial interests that reach spouses and dependent children.⁴ Federally funded researchers also face a separate certification about participation in foreign talent recruitment programs under the CHIPS and Science Act.⁵ Those filings run through different channels than the PAR and shouldn’t be treated as substitutes for it.

1
University of Alabama at Birmingham. External Activities
2
University of Alabama at Birmingham. Annual Requirement
3
The University of Alabama at Birmingham. External and Internal Activities
4
eCFR. 42 CFR 50.603 – Definitions
5
U.S. Department of Defense. Sec 10631 and 10632 of CHIPS and Science Act