Office of Sponsored Programs Administration

This edition of the SR-PD News Bulletin highlights some of our efforts in 2014 and summarizes future plans for 2015.

 

RU Submission/Award Stats
Our data for the 2014 calendar year shows that the overall sponsored research submission volume is comparable to last year. From January to December 2014, 387 new and competitive renewal applications were submitted through SR-PD, 188 to public and 199 to private sponsors (29% Collaborative/Multi-PI, 28% Single PI, 41% Career/Fellowships and 2% to Other-NonResearch). During this same period, the university received 109 awards (versus 85 awards in 2013), 60 from public and 49 from private sponsors (29% Collaborative/Multi-PI, 35% Single PI, 35% Career/Fellowships, and 1% Other-NonResearch). The overall success rate for 2013 RU submissions is 29.6%, with the success rate for NIH research project grants at 31.5%, which is much higher than the 16.8% success rate for all NIH research submissions in FY2013. The number of active RU awards has increased compared to last year: 355 in 2014 versus 330 in 2013.

Sponsor/Policy News
We are closely monitoring developments in Uniform Guidance on administrative requirements for federal awards (details at Uniform Guidance - Information and Updates), which took effect for new awards and increments to existing awards made on or after December 26, 2014.

The NSF released its revised Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) in November, 2014, with changes effective as of December 26, 2014.

There are several policy changes to keep in mind for NIH applications in 2015 – implementation of the new five page NIH Biosketch has been extended and will be effective for due dates on or after May 25, 2015; the new NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy, requiring genomic data sharing plans for studies that will generate large-scale genomic data, is effective for grant submissions starting January 25, 2015; and the late application submission policy has been simplified, where the two week window of consideration after the due date will now include submissions to most Requests For Applications and Program Announcements with special due dates.

A revised version of our Routing Form was recently released to reflect changes resulting from the Uniform Guidance and the Genomic Data Sharing policy.

Updates on SR-PD Resources
With recent NIH policy changes, we have added a new SR-PD boilerplate for the new five page NIH Biosketch format, and updated the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) and Mentoring and Training Plans boilerplates to incorporate changes in NIH Fellowship application requirements. Our Budget Worksheet for sponsored research funding requests was upgraded this summer in response to your feedback, and now provides guidance for each budget category.

We are in the process of upgrading InfoEd, the University's online proposal/award management environment, to enable us to keep up with eRA enhancements. The NIH has transitioned to electronic submission of multi-project applications (ASSIST: Application Submission System and Interface for Submission Tracking) and SR-PD is closely evaluating InfoEd’s solution to ASSIST to facilitate the successful adoption of this new process at RU. NIH is planning to offer ASSIST as an option for submission for most competing grant programs, starting with the Small Research Grant (R03) and Exploratory/Developmental Grant (R21) programs later this month.

Our ResAdmin Forum series, an outreach effort for RU laboratory administrators, is currently on hiatus, but we anticipate the next session will be in early 2015 and it will provide updates on NIH policies and other news on grant-related topics. SR-PD continues to contribute to the Human Resources new employee orientations, and to host individual and group InfoEd training and grant tutorials, tailored to the needs of our researchers.

The Tri-Institutional Collaboration Network (TCN) workshop series opened the 2014-15 academic year in September with NIH Career Development & Training Award Workshops, followed by Time Management for Research Administrators in November. We are currently planning our 2015 events, which will include grant writing for Foundations in mid-March and presentations by Department of Defense Program Officials on biomedical research funding programs in mid-April.  

With InfoEd and RU-IT support, more eRA improvements are coming soon, along with new and revamped features and content on our website. SR-PD is working to ensure that our environment is ready for and compliant with all new sponsor requirements.

We wish you a healthy and productive New Year!