Office of Sponsored Programs Administration & Accounting

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 January 2016 newsletter header

 

Notice:

Business Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 - 5:00pm

James Madison University's Administrative Offices will close for Winter Break beginning on Wednesday, December 21st and will reopen on Tuesdsay, January 3rd. 

December Reminders
Make Year-End Transactions on your Grants Now

Sponsored Programs Accounting reminds you to submit ATVs, PARs and Expenditure documents NOW so they will be recorded in December. This will help to avoid misinformation related to the fall effort reporting cycle. 

CAUTION: January Deadlines are Closer than they Appear!

With just two weeks left before winter break, there is very little time to work on funding proposals before the university reopens January 3. Please contact us NOW about any proposals due next month! January is a very busy month for deadlines. Factor in limited staffing in the Office of Sponsored Programs AND the potential for inclement weather and we may encounter a regrettable situation where your deadline is missed. We will be adhering to the FIVE BUSINESS DAY RULE for receipt of final approved materials so that we can ensure that all proposals are complete, compliant, and submitted on time. Plan to submit all final materials to the Office of Sponsored Programs at least 5 business days prior to the sponsor's published deadline. This will ensure that we have resources available to complete your proposal and provide you the best opportunity for a winning application. 

Featured Funding Opportunity
NIST Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program 

Internal Deadline: Feb 8, 2017

Receipt Date at NIST: Feb 15, 2017

If you have students interested in NIST SURF please refer them to our office for assistance at 568-6872 or jmu_grants@jmu.edu. 

Each summer NIST sponsors have an 11-week summer internship program for undergraduate students majoring in chemistry, computer science, engineering, materials science, fire research, nanotechnology, information technology, mathematics, biology, manufacturing, statistics, or other STEM disciplines. SURF students have the opportunity to gain valuable, hands-on experience, working with cutting edge technology in one of the world's leading research organizations. 

The program provides students with hands-on research experience under the mentorship of a NIST scientist or engineer in Boulder, CO or Gaithersburg, MD. Students can work on projects in any one of the seven NIST facilities: 

  • Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology 
  • Communications Technology Laboratory 
  • Engineering Laboratory 
  • Information Technology Laboratory 
  • Material Measurement Laboratory 
  • NIST Center for Neutron Research 
  • Physical Measurement Laboratory 

Applications for participation in the SURF program are only accepted from colleges or universities, and not from individual students. All applications are required to be submitted to NIST as a group by the university. 

Please check the SURF website (https://www.nist.gov/surf) for a checklist of items required for application. 

IMPORTANT: All student application materials must be received in our office by February 8 to ensure submission. 

Upcoming Workshops
Grants Resource Center (GRC) Services Overview 

Thursday, January 5, 2017 
10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. 
Rose Library Room 5211

JMU has an institutional membership to the Grants Resource Center and faculty can take advantage of their services. The Grants Resource Center Services Overview workshop provides a refresher on how to best take advantage of GRC resources and services. The presentation includes tips on how to encourage faculty members to use Faculty Alerts, the Funded Proposal Library, Agency Fact Sheets, and much more. The overview will also feature a tutorial on the GRC website resources.

Faculty participants will make progress toward these outcomes: 

  • Understanding GRC resources and services, and 
  • Becoming aware of available grants. 

Faculty participants will make progress toward these scholarship outcomes: 

  • Enhancing scholarly productivity, and 
  • Exploring & securing funding opportunities to support scholarly activities. 

Facilitator: Nyala Watkins, Senior Program Advisor for the Grants Resource Center  
Sponsor: Office of Research and Scholarship 

Keeping Your Research Dreams from Becoming a Nightmare

Thursday, January 5, 2017 
1:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. 
Rose Library Room 3311 

With or without funding, navigating the world of research compliance can be frustrating. This roundtable is for any faculty interested in conducting research. From use of human subjects and/or animal subjects to gift or sponsored funding proposal development to expenditure monitoring and close-out, we will answer your questions. 

Facilitators from the Office of Sponsored Programs, Sponsored Programs Accounting, Office of Research Integrity, and Corporate and Foundation Relations are eager to answer these questions, share lessons learned, and provide tips and tricks in an informal Q&A setting.

Faculty participants will make progress toward these outcomes: 

  • Understanding the resources and services of the Office of Sponsored Programs and the Office of Research Integrity, and
  • Gaining knowledge about research compliance, the Institutional Review Board, and research integrity.  

Faculty participants will make progress toward these scholarship outcomes: 

  • Enhancing scholarly productivity, and 
  • Exploring & securing funding opportunities to support scholarly activities. 

Facilitators: Carolyn Strong, Director, Office of Research Integrity,John Hulvey, Director of Sponsored Programs Accounting,
Tamara Hatch, Interim Director  of Sponsored Programs Administration,
Carrie Tillman, Assistant Director of Research Integrity, and
John Meck, Corporate and Foundation Relations

To register for these sessions and other sessions during the January Symposium 2017 click here.

Forms, Tools & Resources 
Sponsored Programs' Pre-Award Guide for Procurements 

The OSP has developed a Pre-Award Guide for Procurements to inform principal investigators of possible procurement requirements they might encounter when budgeting for goods and services.

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Reminder

Upcoming NSF Preliminary Proposal Deadlines

January 19, 2017
Division of Integrative Organismal Systems Core Program (IOS), NSF 17-508
https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf17508 

January 23, 2017
Division of Environmental Biology (core programs) (DEB), NSF-512
https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?WT.z_pims_id=503634&ods_key=nsf17512

January 23, 2017 
Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB), NSF 17-513
https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?WT.z_pims_id=13544&ods_key=nsf17513

For the above deadlines, the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) does not require principal investigators to obtain approvals via the Internal Approval Form as per usual procedure because there is no budgetary information to be disclosed at the pre-proposal stage. However our office will stand by to check items in FastLane for you and to ultimately submit the pre-proposal to meet the deadline. Please plan to provide the OSP with SRO access to view edit, and submit the completed preliminary proposal at least five (5) business days before the deadline. 

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NSF Update

NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (Effective Jan 30, 2017)

A revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), (NSF 17-1) has been issued. The PAPPG has been modified in its entirety, to remove all references to the Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) and Award & Administration Guide (AAG). The document will now be referred to solely as the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide. 

Given the number of important revisions, the community is strongly encouraged to review the by-chapter summary of changes provided at the beginning of the PAPPG. 
The new PAPPG will be effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after January 30, 2017. Note, while this version of the PAPPG becomes effective on January 30, 2017, in the interim, the guidelines contained in the current PAPPG (NSF 16-1) continue to apply.  

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NIH Update

Consider Submitting an R21 Grant

The NIH Exploratory/Development Research Grant Award (R21)

The R21 activity code "is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development." NIH seeks applications for "exploratory, novel studies that break new ground," for "high-risk, high-reward studies," and for projects that are distinct from those that would be funded by the traditional R01 Research Project Grant mechanism. R21 grants are short duration (project period for up to 2 years) and lower in budget than most R01s (combined budget over two years cannot exceed $275,000 in direct costs). NIH institutes and centers (ICs) approach the R21 mechanism in variable ways: 18 ICs accept investigator-initiated R21 applications in response to the parent R21 funding opportunity, while 7 ICs only accept R21 applications in response to specific funding opportunity announcements. 

Competition for both the R01 and R21 is stiff. In FY2015, success rates for Type 1 R21 applications were only 14%, compared to 16% for Type 1 R01 applications. Over time, the number of R01 awards has gradually declined, while the number of R21 awards has substantially  increased. NIH reports that the numbers of applications have increased substantially for both activity codes, but the rate of growth has been much greater for R21s. In 2001, NIH received six R01 applications for every R21 application received; while in 2015 the ratio of R01 applications to R21 applications less than 2. In using the new investigator policy definition to identify new investigators, on average across the last five fiscal years, approximately 35% of R01 applications, and 50% of R21 applications, are submitted by new investigators. In case of awards, 35% of R01 awards and 34% of R21 awards are made to new investigators. 
Data mining at NIH reveals the following:
  • The R21 mechanism is increasingly popular - we are seeing many more applications and awards, with growth rates exceeding those of R01 grants - but also highly competitive.
  • Most R21 applicants and awardees have previously received some NIH funding; only 34% of R21 awardees were new NIH investigators.
  • Over 15% of R21 awards are followed by at least one similar R01 application, but fewer than 5% of R21 awards are followed by at least one similar funded R01 project. 

Reference this link for the full story and graphical representations of findings. 

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Timely Topics

New Resource for Grants Seekers in Search of Private Funding

Debbie Peronne is JMU's new Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations in the Office of Development. She comes to us from Johns Hopkins University where she worked closely with faculty members and the Office of Sponsored Projects to secure non-governmental grants, with an emphasis on private foundation support for research. With 35 years of experience in the field, she will collaborate with our office to identify new funding opportunities, advise faculty about seeking grants from private funders, explore grant-maker interest in specific faculty projects, and help faculty prepare proposals of the highest quality. Debbie's email is perrondl@jmu.edu.  

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Compliance Corner

Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing

The purpose of this module is to help students, as well as professionals, identify and prevent questionable practices and to develop an awareness of ethical writing. This guide was written by Miguel Roig, PhD, from St. Johns University with funding from ORI. | website| Download PDF of this Module|

Infographics

The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has developed a series infographics addressing the Responsible Conduct of Research and the handling of research misconduct. These infographics can be used by RCR instructors and Research Integrity Officers (RIOs) to help educate the community on research integrity topics.  ORI encourages the sharing and distribution of these resources with colleagues. Click here to view the series of infographics. 

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Office of Sponsored Programs
Foundation Hall
MSC 5728
1031 Harrison Street
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807