Grant Connections - March 2015

Wednesday, March 25, 2015
11:00 a.m. – noon
Room 171 (Reading Room) of the Bond Life Sciences Center

Agenda

• Hot Topics
• SciENcv and the new NIH and NSF biosketch formats. Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae, or SciENcv, is a researcher profile system for all individuals who apply for, receive, or are associated with federal research funding. Sheryl Koenig will demo how to create a SciENcv profile and how SciENcv generates biosketches in NIH, NSF, and other formats. 
• Pivot Funding Opportunities Database. Pivot is a subscription database of funding opportunities and a scholar database designed to help researchers collaborate. Jill Ferguson will demo Pivot’s funding search and scholar profile functionality and talk about efforts around campus to support its use. 

Mark your calendars! Meetings are scheduled for the following dates.

• April 22, 2015 
• May 27, 2015 
• June 24, 2015 
• July 29, 2015 
• August 26, 2015 
• September 23, 2015 
• October 28, 2015

Grant Connections Organizational Crew (send your suggestions)

• Liz Bent, Grants & Contracts Administrator, CAFNR 
• Marty Carter, Senior Business Operations Associate, School of Medicine 
• Brandi Clements, Grants & Contracts Administrator, College of Education 
• Craig David, Director, OSPA 
• Jill Ferguson, Pre-award Compliance Manager, OSPA 
• Sheryl Koenig, Grant Proposal Coordinator, Bond Life Sciences Center 
• Julia Rodriguez, Grants & Contracts Administrator, Bond Life Sciences Center 
• Jamie Szabo, Post-award Compliance Manager, OSPA 

Please forward this email to anyone associated with research who you think might be interested in attending.

Proposal Submission Deadlines

The following notice was issued by Craig David, Director of the Office of Sponsored Programs Administration, on February 27, 2015.

The University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) implemented submission guidelines for sponsored project proposals to government agencies, foundations, and corporations in 2011. Under this policy, a complete and final proposal, accompanied by the necessary internal approvals, must be received by the Office of Sponsored Programs Administration (OSPA) at least five (5) business days prior to the sponsor’s due date and time. These requirements are intended to provide OSPA adequate time to review proposals so that any problem areas can be identified and corrected before submission.

The proposal submission deadlines are instrumental to the success of the University’s research enterprise for the following reasons:

Ensure successful on-time submission of accurate and responsive proposals. Adherence to these deadlines ensures that all proposals receive complete review. Such review includes consideration of project narratives for consistency with budgets, staffing, and scopes of work.

Maintain fairness among faculty. Adherence to the submission guidelines ensures that all faculty benefit from full pre-award support and all proposals receive proper review in the order received by OSPA.

Safeguard compliance. In this era of increased focus on regulatory compliance, it is essential that the University take adequate measures to address federal-wide and sponsor-specific submission requirements.


Thank you for your efforts and, in advance, for your adherence to the proposal submission and review policies. If you have questions, please contact me at (573) 882-7560.

Craig David

Director

NSF System Update: Grants.gov Email Concerning Deleted Funding Opps

The following notice from the National Science Foundation (NSF) was issued on March 11, 2015.  Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact your OSPA Pre-Award staff.

We are writing to let you know that some of the National Science Foundation (NSF) awardees and applicants may have received an email from Grants.gov stating the following:

“A grant opportunity you have previously downloaded from Grants.gov has been deleted. National Science Foundation will no longer be accepting applications for this opportunity…”

Although some funding opportunities are legitimately deleted for various reasons, it may be the case that this email was sent about funding opportunities that are actually still available on Grants.gov and FastLane. For consistency with revisions made to FastLane resulting from issuance of the FY2015 Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG), some funding packages with outdated forms needed to be deleted from Grants.gov and replaced with updated forms. Unfortunately, this deletion process created an automatic email from the Grants.gov system. NSF is working with Grants.gov to determine if this situation can be prevented in the future.

If you received this message from Grants.gov or you receive questions about this message, please direct awardees and applicants to use the same federal grants opportunity number to search for the same grant opportunity on Grants.gov to see if it is still active. If it is not, then it has likely been deleted for a legitimate reason and we are asking that applicants and awardees contact the cognizant Program Officer for more information.

For additional questions, please contact the NSF Help Desk.
7 AM to 9 PM
1-800-673-6188.


Thank you,
The National Science Foundation

Grant Connections - February 2015

Wednesday, February 25, 2015
11:00 a.m. – noon
Room 572 (Collaboratory) of the Bond Life Sciences Center

Agenda

• Hot Topics
• Environmental Health and Safety: Steve Hynes, Mary Reichel, Sunny Hoffman
• RPPR Roundtable Discussion: Tyeece Little (Division of Arts and Sciences), Ieshia Griffith (School of Medicine Grants and Contracts), Angie Hake (OSPA) and Karen Geren (OSPA)

Mark your calendars! Meetings are scheduled for the following dates.

• March 25, 2015 
• April 29, 2015 
• May 27, 2015 

Grant Connections Organizational Crew (send your suggestions)

• Liz Bent, Grants & Contracts Administrator, CAFNR 
• Marty Carter, Senior Business Operations Associate, School of Medicine 
• Brandi Clements, Grants & Contracts Administrator, College of Education 
• Craig David, Director, OSPA 
• Jill Ferguson, Senior Compliance Manager, OSPA 
• Sheryl Koenig, Grant Proposal Coordinator, Bond Life Sciences Center 
• Julia Rodriguez, Grants & Contracts Administrator, Bond Life Sciences Center 
• Jamie Szabo, Senior Compliance Manager, OSPA 

Please forward this email on to anyone else associated with research who you think might be interested in attending.

InFocus - Electronic EVR (eEVR)

The following editorial from Brian Burnett, Vice President for Finance and CFO and compliance update from Donna Johanning, Director of Financial Information Systems, was included in the InFocus - F&A Quarterly Newsletter released on February 20, 2015.

Welcome to InFocus!

The only constant in life... change.

With the diverse missions of the University of Missouri System and its campuses and operations, there is no question our ability to serve is increasingly financially strained under increasing demands for service from more students, limited state appropriation growth, tuition increase limits, and a challenging environment for competitive research funding. These are the realities we face as we work to serve the state of Missouri and the students who come to our campuses to learn and grow their abilities to be productive citizens of the state and nation. Thus, as the university continues to look for ways to not just survive but thrive in an era of a challenging funding climate, we must continue to examine ways to improve our operations and services. For the UM System Office of Finance, we must find ways to improve our operations and effectiveness of our services to the campuses we serve.

Notice to NIH Grant Applicants: eRA Information: Proactively Check Status of Application in eRA Commons

MU Grants Community, 

Please see the following alert from NIH issued Tuesday, February 3, 2015. OSPA checks the application status upon submission; however, as NIH suggests below, we also encourage PIs and Departmental Research Administrators to do the same. 

eRA Information: Proactively Check Status of Application in eRA Commons 

It has come to our attention that some notifications, sent upon application submission, are not being delivered to the email addresses listed on the SF424 R&R cover form of the application. 

We are looking into the issue and will send an update once we have resolved it.

Meanwhile, we encourage Principal Investigators and Signing Officials to proactively check the status of their submitted grant application in eRA Commons.

eRA Communications

Division of Communications and Outreach

NIH Office of Extramural Research

Questions? Please contact the eRA Help Desk. Check out self-help resources on the Help page before submitting an online ticket; or call Toll-free: 1-866-504-9552, Phone: 301-402-7469.  Help Desk hours are Mon-Fri, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET

NIH Notices: Grants.gov Outage Feb 13-17 | Application Submission Reminders | FY 2015 Legislative Mandates

MU Grants Community,

Please take note of the following NIH and AHRQ Notices:

• Adjustments to NIH and AHRQ Grant Application Due Dates Between February 13 and February 18, 2015, for Grants.gov Planned System Outage (NOT-OD-15-057)

Grants.gov will be unavailable from February 14, 2015 at 12:01 AM ET to Tuesday, February 17, 2015 at 6:00 AM ET. Due dates that fall on or between February 13 and February 18, 2015 will move to February 19, 2015.

• Reminders Related to the NIH/AHRQ Policy for Application Submission (NOT-OD-15-059)

The basic requirements for allowable applications have not changed with the updated NIH/AHRQ policy on application submission (see NOT-OD-14-074 and NOT-OD-14-082). Investigators now may submit a New Application, following an unsuccessful application, without concern for scientific overlap with previously reviewed applications.

• Notice of Legislative Mandates in Effect for FY 2015 (NOT-OD-15-054)

Should you have questions about the applicability of these policies to current or anticipated projects, please contact your OSPA Pre-Award or Post-Award staff.

Updates Coming to FastLane and Research.gov

MU Research Community,

Please see the following communication from the National Science Foundation regarding important updates to the proposal preparation and submission process. Should you have questions, please contact Jill Ferguson (fergusonjs@missouri.edu) or your OSPA pre-award staff.

On January 26, 2015, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will release updates to FastLane and Research.gov that may impact the way you work. This update will implement revised policy and incorporate feedback received from NSF staff and the research community.

Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 15-1)

Grant Connections - January 2015

Wednesday, January 28, 2015
11:00 a.m. – noon
Room 572 (Collaboratory) of the Bond Life Sciences Center

Please join us for our first meeting of 2015.

Agenda

• Hot Topics
• FDP Meeting Updates – Jill Ferguson will share information on federal agency updates, DATA Act, SciENcv, and new biosketch formats.
• Uniform Guidance – a closer look at Subaward Program Reports – A diverse panel (department/college administrator, PI, OSPA) will answer questions about the changes to subaward reporting requirements.
• Electronic EVRs – Jamie Szabo will give an update on Electronic EVRs followed by Q&A.
  

NIH Notices: FY2015 Funding

MU Grants Community,

Please take note of the following NIH Notices applicable to FY2015 funding:

• NIH Fiscal Policy for Grant Awards - FY2015 (NOT-OD-15-050)
  Non-competing continuation awards that have already been made in FY 2015 were generally funded at levels below that indicated on the most recent Notice of Award (generally up to 90% of the previously committed level). Such reductions may be fully or partially restored, depending on the Institute or Center. Non-competing continuation grants (research and non-research) including those that remain to be issued in FY 2015 likely will be made within the range between the commitment level indicated on the Notice of Award and 3 percent below that level. 

• Notice of Salary Limitation on Grants, Cooperative Agreements, and Contracts (NOT-OD-15-049)
  For FY 2015, direct salary is restricted to Executive Level II of the Federal Executive pay scale. The Executive Level II salary is currently set at $181,500, increasing to $183,300 effective January 11, 2015. Questions & Answers and examples of adjustments are provided in the Notice. 

• Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Stipends, Tuition/Fees and Other Budgetary Levels Effective for Fiscal Year 2015 (NOT-OD-15-048)
  Current stipend levels are to be used in the preparation of future competing and non-competing NRSA institutional training grant and individual fellowship applications. They will be administratively applied to all applications currently in the review process. 

Should you have questions about the applicability of these policies to current or anticipated projects, please contact your OSPA Pre-Award or Post-Award staff.