International Office Administration & Operations
International Office Administration & Operations
Managing an overseas office or long-term program is similar to starting and running a small business. We support both office administration and core operational infrastructure so that you can focus on your program and research activities rather than the administrative and operational necessities.
How We Support You
We can set up and manage long-term overseas offices for Harvard-affiliated projects, handling the legal, administrative, and financial operations so programs can focus on their academic work. Our end-to-end support simplifies budgeting, ensures compliance, and provides seamless integration with Harvard’s systems.
How It Works
Long-Term Support
This service is ideal for Harvard University-affiliated departments seeking a long-term presence abroad (generally five years or more) to support local staff, leased or owned facilities, and local payments. Our office administration & operations service also includes our international employment service.
Operating an office abroad requires several rounds of approval, first from your School’s academic leadership and then from the University Committee on International Projects and Sites (UCIPS). We support the pre-UCIPS review planning phase by providing in-country information on key considerations, including required registrations, regulatory requirements, and other operational constraints to help inform and strengthen your proposal. Once your project has been approved and you've entered into a service agreement with us, we incorporate and register a legal entity. We then manage the administrative and financial operations while you direct program activities and manage employees.
What We'll Do for You
From Start to Finish
We begin by researching country requirements, options, and costs to provide you with detailed administrative plans and operational budgets, which you can integrate into your School review and UCIPS review. This in-depth research may involve associated costs. We also assess which registration type will best suit your project’s needs. With UCIPS approval, we’ll file the paperwork to incorporate and register in the selected location.
Once established in the location, we negotiate the lease, manage all office set-up, and provide ongoing gift and grant management, office management, employment services, payroll processing, auditing, and financial reporting. We also stay up-to-date and in compliance with the ever-changing regulations to minimize risks to your department, School, and overseas employees.
Advantages
Simplified & Connected
Our affiliation with Harvard University enables us to manage overseas operations in accordance with Harvard’s values and requirements, all while assuring faculty and staff control of academic programming and research projects. Our standard, predictable service fee simplifies your budgeting and takes the guesswork out of international expenses.
And once we’re established in country, our financial systems are flexible enough to meet individual project needs and foreign requirements while also seamlessly integrating with Harvard University’s systems.
Frequently Asked Questions for Office Administration & Operations
We currently manage entities and offices in eight countries (Hong Kong, Israel, India, Ireland, South Africa, Tunisia, the UK, and the US), and we’re always interested in expanding our portfolio in support of our clients' projects. Where we can open a new office or add to an existing office depends on:
- your project’s activities
- your project’s timeline and duration
- your budget
- your funding sources
- our registration status and jurisdiction to operate in the selected location
In a country or jurisdiction where we’re already registered, we can open a new office on your behalf, if approved by UCIPS.
Alternatively, if we’re operating an existing office on behalf of another department or School, we can work with all parties to negotiate space sharing and operational efficiencies to extend support to you at the same site.
In a country or jurisdiction where we’re not established and do not have an office, we’ll work with you to identify your needs and challenges, review the selected country’s requirements and options to operate there, and provide support for your initial UCIPS budgeting and planning.
See Where We Operate for the list of countries where we have ongoing operations.
UCIPS approval is required before establishing any new Harvard University-affiliated offices abroad. It's typically a two-stage process: authorization to explore and authorization to implement. For more information, review the UCIPS criteria on the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs' (OVPIA) website. Note that many Schools also have their own review and approval process, which occurs prior to UCIPS. Consult with your School's Research Administration Office, Finance Office, or Dean’s Office, as applicable, about your specific School-based review requirements.
Once your project receives approval from your School, we can work with you and in consultation with the OVPIA to prepare your budget and proposal for review by UCIPS.
We offer a competitive pricing structure unique to each project. At the outset, we scope the project with you to create a multi-stage proposal based on:
- your project activities
- your project timeline and duration
- the number of employees
- the size and type of office or lab space needed
- the country of operation
Upon scoping, we’ll present you with startup costs, which encompass legal, regulatory, registration, tax services, consulting, and our operational costs. In addition to startup costs, we charge a monthly service fee. All costs, including our service fee and early termination fee, are mutually agreed upon and outlined in detail in our service agreement with you. As an example, service fees for current projects range from $5,000 to $8,000 per month.
In addition to our service fee, your monthly invoice includes expenses that we pay in country on your behalf, such as:
- building leases
- taxes
- vendor payments (e.g., utilities, maintenance, local IT, event space, caterers)
- employee salaries
- assignment allowances (e.g., housing, cost of living)
- fringe expenses
As outlined in our service agreement, an early termination fee may be charged if your project is shut down prior to the five-year threshold. This fee enables us to recoup some of the significant upfront costs of the registration process. It’s prorated annually and may be waived if we have other ongoing projects operating in the same country.
Our service fee covers our operational and administrative expenses and replaces the expense and effort that your department would otherwise incur if managing these operations on your own. All costs, including our service fee, are outlined in detail in our service agreement with you.
Specifically, our service fee covers:
- Legal establishment and registrations
- Legal counsel
- Safety and security assessment for potential office location
- Lease negotiation for selected office or lab space
- Permits and licensing
- Required insurances
- IT configuration and coordination
- Vendor management and payments
- Payroll setup and processing
- Dedicated employee support from our International HR team
- Pre-assignment tax briefing (if applicable for U.S. expatriates and third-country nationals)
- Tax services
- Grant and gift administration (if applicable)
- Financial management and reporting
- Currency conversion
- Payment of bank fees
- Accounting
- Annual audits
- Compliance tracking and oversight
- Ongoing oversight of the office and lease negotiations
- Ongoing project management
- Conferences and collaborations administration and support
- Coordination between Cambridge staff and local staff
Our service fee does not cover:
- Visa sponsorship and work permits.
- Accounts payable (e.g., rent; vendor payments for utilities, maintenance, etc.) and employment costs (e.g., salaries, assignment allowances, and benefits). We bill you for these costs in our reoccurring invoices.
- Close out and wind down costs when a project ends. For example, these may include legal and accounting fees to dissolve or deregister the entity, lease termination or “make good” costs, and any required employee separation payments. Before beginning close out, we provide an estimate of these costs. Because close outs can be complex, the final amount may be higher or lower than the estimate. We bill these close out costs to you either as a lump sum in advance or monthly based on actual vendor invoices. Our standard monthly service fee continues during the close out period, as we are still actively managing the wind down.
- Any early termination fee, if applicable. As outlined in our service agreement, an early termination fee may be charged if your project is shut down prior to the five year threshold. This fee is designed to offset unrecovered, front-loaded investments and additional costs and risks that arise when a project ends earlier than planned. We may waive the fee if we have other ongoing projects operating in the same country. This early termination fee is separate from the close out costs described above.
We determine this on a case-by-case basis after careful review of the grant terms and other factors that govern allowability. We’ll work with Harvard’s Office for Sponsored Programs (OSP) to help you determine if our service fee is appropriate to charge to a particular grant. If allowed, the service fee should be included in the grant budget at the proposal stage. In some cases, only part of the service fee is allowable, which we’ll itemize as necessary.
At the outset, your department is responsible for:
- Preparing proposals and budgets for School and UCIPS reviews
- Scoping the project and service agreement with us
- Obtaining University permission for use of Harvard names, marks, or logos
- Supporting the identification and selection of office or lab space
- Supporting the identification and selection of vendors (e.g., IT, construction, maintenance, etc.)
- Recruiting and selecting in-country staff
Once we’re operating, your department is responsible for:
- Collaborating with us to ensure local compliances and standards are met
- Directing program activities
- Informing us of any expansion to program activities in a timely manner
- Day-to-day and performance management of staff and faculty
- Coding and submitting invoices
- Approving expenses and payroll
Each case is unique. We’ll advise you on expected timelines at the outset and continue to update you throughout the set-up process. It's important to plan early. Your timeline should factor in School and UCIPS reviews and also be flexible enough to account for administrative delays, which are common when operating internationally. The set-up process abroad can be slowed by office closures for holidays, backlogs in paperwork processing, or sudden changes in government policies.
The following criteria influence your overall time frame:
- Country where your project will occur
- Our legal presence or jurisdiction to operate in the selected country
- Your project’s funding source
- Whether your project needs a new or existing office or lab and the amount of outfitting required
- Number of employees to hire
- Employee(s) immigration status and work authorization in the selected country
The activities to undertake include:
- Obtaining School and UCIPS approvals (client)
- Scoping the project to understand your activities and needs (HG and client)
- Researching the country requirements (HG)
- Developing and negotiating a service agreement (HG and client)
- Filing incorporation and registration paperwork and receiving approvals (HG)
- Opening a bank account (HG)
- Identifying and selecting office space (HG and client)
- Negotiating office lease (HG)
- Recruiting and selecting employees (client)
- Hiring and onboarding employees (HG)
Some of the activities can occur in tandem, while others are conditional. In countries where we’re registered or already have jurisdiction to operate, these activities can take three to six months if you’re able to use an office that we operate for another department or School, or six to nine months or more if you require a new office or lab to be procured and outfitted. In countries where we’re not registered and do not have an office, these activities can take eight to 12 months or more.
Our international office administration & operations service is ideal for Harvard University-affiliated programs in need of a long-term presence abroad (generally five years or more) for office or lab space, employment, or banking. Programs should also have an operating budget that can accommodate our monthly service fee in addition to general operating and employment expenses (i.e., rent, office maintenance, taxes, salary, benefits, and fringe expenses).
