2014 Summer News Bulletin
 
This edition of SR-PD’s News Bulletin summarizes our recent activities and ongoing efforts, with updates of sponsored research resources and endeavors on campus along with important sponsor and regulatory policy highlights.

Between January and June of 2014, 174 grant applications were submitted through SR-PD, 83 to public and 91 to private sponsors (29% Collaborative/Multi-PI, 25% Single PI, 44% Career/Fellowships and 2% Other). The University received 61 new and competing awards during this period, 32 from public and 29 from private sponsors (13% Collaborative/Multi-PI, 41% Single PI, 43% Career/Fellowships, and 1% Other/Non-Research). Our weekly funding alerts included 395 funding opportunities from more than 100 sponsors, and over 20 Tips on various grant-related topics were disseminated to RU investigators and research administrators during this period.

On the federal level, and as reported in our recent Spotlight, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued its final Uniform Guidance (UG) on reforming administrative requirements, cost principles and audit requirements for federal awards, which include federal research grant awards to Institutions of Higher Education. The UG is designed to streamline guidance for federal awards, ease administrative burden, and to reduce risks of waste, fraud, and abuse. It is anticipated to apply to new awards and increments to existing awards made on or after December 26, 2014, unless OMB grants an extension.

The NIH has introduced a number of significant policy changes since January 2014, including a major revision to their resubmission policy. Investigators now have the option to submit a new (A0) application instead of a resubmission following an unsuccessful A0 or A1 application. The NIH also began a pilot of a new biosketch format in May with select program announcements. The new format expands the biosketch from four to five pages, and allows researchers to better describe their most significant contributions to science, the impact of their contributions on their scientific field, and on health or technology. The NIH plans to roll out this modified biosketch for all NIH grant applications in FY 2016. The NIH continues to develop new funding mechanisms, including the R35, which is intended to provide long-term support to experienced investigators with an outstanding record of research productivity. NCI just released an R35 Funding Opportunity Announcement and other institutes and centers are expected to follow suit. Starting in October 2014, eRA Commons User IDs will be required for graduate and undergraduate students who participate in NIH-funded projects for at least one person month or more. The NIH transition to electronic submission of all applications, including multi-project applications is almost complete. RU successfully submitted our first multi-project proposal electronically using the new ASSIST system in May, 2014.

The NSF revised their Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide in February, which provides additional information and clarifications for the application sections. A recent NSF Notice reminds investigators that the titles and abstracts of their grant proposals should be written for a broad audience and include a non-technical description of their project, which is critical to improving the public’s understanding of NSF-supported research.  A new NSF toolkit, provides videos, fact sheets and brochures describing how NSF research funding contributes to the nation’s scientific enterprise.  

The DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created a new Biotechnologies Office with the goal of fostering breakthroughs that integrate biology, engineering and computer science for national security, and include areas of research such as human-machine interfaces, and microbes as production platforms, with programs that range from single cells to complex biological systems.

We have seen new sponsor requirements related to the training of predoctoral and postdoctoral researchers. The American Heart Association (AHA) began requiring an Individual Development Plan (IDP) for fellowship and Fellow to Faculty Transition applications as of July 1, 2014.  The NIH has expanded on their recommendation that institutions implement IDPs for NIH-supported trainees and now requires “additional educational information” on predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowship applications. SR-PD has developed a new boilerplate for Mentoring and Training Plans for Biomedical Researchers  to meet these and other sponsor requirements. We have updated several of our other boilerplates, including the Data Sharing/Management Plan, and Broader Impacts, and added a new page with resources for the new NIH Biosketch format.     

Over the past six months, outreach efforts for laboratory administrators included our 17th ResAdmin Forum, where we presented updates on services provided by our Post-Award area, e.g. Notice of Awards, no-cost extensions, close-out procedures, etc. SR-PD continues to contribute to the Human Resources new employee orientations, where we describe SR-PD services, policies and resources to new researchers joining the institution. Our individual and group InfoEd trainings and grant tutorials, tailored to the needs of our faculty members, Clinical Scholars, Postdoctoral Associates and Fellows, Graduate Fellows, and other potential sponsored research grants applicants are ongoing. Altogether, in the past six months, SR-PD members offered 16 training sessions to RU investigators engaged in sponsored research applications and awards, and to administrators supporting them.

The Tri-Institutional Collaboration Network (TCN) kicked 2014 off with ABCs of Research Compliance and Grants Management in January, followed by a grant writing workshop in February on Deciphering Funding Announcements and Responding to Critiques. Next, we had a Symposium on Public Access to Scholarly Research in April, and a lecture on How a Journal Editor Evaluates and Screens your Work in May. The final event of the academic year was a Symposium on Basic and Translational Training and Diversity of the Biomedical Workforce, which featured a plenary talk by Sally Rockey, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research. Close to 300 members of the Tri-Institutional community benefited from TCN events so far in 2014. Participants consisted of junior and senior faculty, administrators, and managers, and the workshops were well received.

News at a Glance (January - June 2014)
June 25, 2014   Symposium on Basic and Translational Training and Diversity of the Biomedical Workforce (TCN)
June 19, 2014   Spotlight on Uniform Guidance
May 29, 2014   Research Administration Forum 17
May 22, 2014   Group Admin Refresher Session
May 14, 2014   InfoEd Tutorial NIH K Career Awards
May 08, 2014   How a Journal Editor Evaluates and Screens Your Work (TCN)
Apr. 17, 2014   Sponsored Research Funding for New HOLs
Apr. 16, 2014   A Symposium on Public Access to Scholarly Research (TCN)
Mar. 26, 2014   Grant Writing Tutorial for Clinical Scholars
Mar. 19, 2014   InfoEd Tutorial NIH Fellowship Awards
Feb. 12, 2014   Deciphering Funding Announcements and Responding to Critiques (TCN)
Feb. 01, 2014   Revised Routing Form (required as of 2/1/14)
Jan. 23, 2014   InfoEd Tutorial NIH K Career Awards
Jan. 16, 2014   2014 Winter News Bulletin
Jan. 13, 2014   ABCs of Research Compliance and Grants Management (TCN) 
Jan. 02, 2014   Betty Chan joined SR-PD
 
In other national sponsored research news, the National Science Board recently issued a report on Reducing Investigator’s Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research, which made  several recommendations to streamline the federal grant process: application requirements should be limited to those that are necessary to evaluate scientific merits; reporting should be focused on outcomes; and payroll certification should be automated for effort reporting.
 
We are exploring new event topics for our outreach efforts for the 2014-15 academic year, such as the new NIH/NSF/DARPA/FDA/Foundation BRAIN initiative, SciENcv: Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae, public/private partnerships and research support, European Union research funding, Tri-I Core Services management, and lab management, as well as continuing our special mini-series to Meet a Tri-I President. In anticipation of the expanded requirement (starting October 17, 2014) to use the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) for large multi-project grants that are presently utilizing the non-SNAP progress reports, we offered an RPPR training session for research administrators in July.

With InfoEd and RU-IT support, more eRA improvements are coming this year, among them an InfoEd version upgrade, which will enable us to keep up with eRA advancements, a web-based Routing Form, new and revamped features and content on our website, as well as a reconfigured editing system. InfoEd is also working to transition to the new Application Submission System & Interface for Submission Tracking (ASSIST), which is now used to prepare and submit multi-project grant applications electronically to the NIH. We are evaluating the Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae (SciENcv), which is an electronic tool that will enable researchers to assemble and maintain their NIH biosketches for Federal grant applications and progress reports. We are also monitoring other grant-related tool development efforts, like ORCID, which provides unique digital identifiers for researchers, and InCommon Federation, which is used for identity management for US research and education and sponsor partners. We are continuing our efforts to improve the functionality of the budget tool, and hope to have the new version available soon. We are reviewing these plans and will continue to keep the RU community informed on new policies and regulations that may impact sponsored research operation and management.

We encourage you to take advantage of our services and resources and to share with us your needs and ideas.

Have a healthy and productive summer!
 
 
 
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2014 Winter News Bulletin
2013 Summer News Bulletin
2013 Winter News Bulletin
2012 Summer News Bulletin
2012 Winter New Bulletin
2011 Summer News Bulletin
2011 Winter News Bulletin
2010 Summer News Bulletin
2010 Winter News Bulletin
2009 Summer News Bulletin
2009 Winter News Bulletin
2008 Summer News Bulletin
2008 Winter News Bulletin
 
 
 
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