nyu research administrator’s forum november 29, 2007

NYU Research Administrator’s

ForumNovember 29, 2007

NCURA National Meeting 2007 Facilitating Large and Complex Proposal Efforts

Challenges with internal depts partnering Participating departments need to learn one another’s language and culture Large project opportunities may require a limited submission process Buy-in: significant resources (tens of thousands of dollars) may need to be

dedicated to reach submission Challenges with external collaborators

Varied policies, procedures Multiple approvals (IRB, IACUC, COI committees at partnering institution as

well as yours) Need to build trust – can’t always be done in a short time

Lead investigator is key to bringing it all together Benefit: high risk, high yield, high profile

Facilitating Large and Complex Proposal Efforts (cont’d)…

Essential concerns and need to plan for: Small Business Subcontracting Management Data Dissemination Graduate Education Outreach Assessment Diversity

Potential Pitfalls Turf wars; who gets the glory Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions – “where is the cost sharing coming from?” Make sure to engage external support – politicians, other agency/institutional support

if needed Is there enough time to create a competitive proposal? Need consistency in writing – “unified voice” Be ready for site visits

Facilitating Large and Complex Proposal Efforts (cont’d)…

Success factors Strong faculty lead Administrative Champion TIME Centralized support for large submission;

institutional proposal development team (proposal production, arranging meetings, etc)

External support for editing and graphics Provide space for materials (proposal “war room”)

NCURA National Meeting 2007 (cont’d)…

Grants.gov Update Agencies may use Adobe or PureEdge platform 100 opportunities available using Adobe Office 2007 supports Adobe Download correct version of Adobe at grants.gov website *If have a high version of Adobe reader on computer,

need to configure so that forms are downloaded with 8.1.1, or you won’t be able to save and submit forms

Must have Adobe 7.0.9 to create PDFs for upload

Grants.gov Update(cont’d)…

Adobe presents an alpha list for all uploads – PAY ATTENTION to naming so application can easily be checked for completeness

On PC – attachments automatically alphabetize Make faculty aware of this because they may not be able

to control order of attachments Mac – attachments don’t automatically

alphabetize Adobe takes over October 2007; no more

PureEdge after September 30, 2008!


Cost Sharing – The Tie that Binds Us Pitfalls

Audit findings Cost sharing policy statement Cost Sharing Definitions – Mandatory, Voluntary committed,

Voluntary uncommitted Methods of Cost Sharing Consistent Treatment of Costs Valuation of third party contributions Recognition of Requirements

Verifiable Not used as cost sharing for more than one project Necessary and reasonable for objectives In approved budget

Cost Sharing – The Tie that Binds Us (cont’d)…

Need for related procedures Who approves cost sharing? How is approval routed and when? Who documents? Department, ledger, cost transfers? Verification of equipment or buildings used for cost sharing

Cost share accounts established at project set-up Best practice: Cost share should be monitored to ensure commitment is

being met proportionate to spending Difference in federally negotiated overhead rate and sponsor rate can be

used as cost share for federal projects only with prior approval. For other sponsors, depends on award terms and conditions.

Voluntary uncommitted effort should not be reflected on the T&E certification to sponsored project(s).

Once reported, it must be included in the organized research base and would potentially reduce our overhead rate.

Cost Sharing – The Tie that Binds Us (cont’d)…

Take aways Only commit to required cost sharing and only up to

required level Commit only what you are prepared to deliver Document, document, document Educate PIs about cost-sharing only what is required


Time and Effort Reporting Recent NSF Office of the Inspector General (OIG) Audits (Caltech, Yale, Univ.

of Arizona, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Univ. of Hawaii and the list is growing!) Summarized audits at other institutions can be found at www.costaccounting.org Problems identified:

Variance between percentage of salary charged and effort claimed to have been spent by PI

Inability of “certifiers” to verify work was performed No process for timely reporting of “significant changes” to effort Significant change should be defined in policy

Committed effort cannot be reduced by more than 25% for a period exceeding three months without sponsor prior approval

Some certifying budgeted amount instead of actual effort, not including uncompensated or cost shared effort

Submission of incomplete reports Late submission of reports

Time and Effort Reporting (cont’d)…

Take aways: Don’t charge or claim 100% time and effort to grants; in

99.9% of cases, faculty are doing something other than solely research

Tolerance of +/- 5%, which would not require a reallocation of salary and effort

Only applicable if committed effort to sponsored projects is less than 100

Time must be expressed as percent of total activity, not hours

Frequency of reporting should match method of certification Better to have no policy than one that is not enforced!


Cost Transfers - Where You’ll Find Unity and Diversity

Institutions utilize Time & Effort reports to process cost transfers

Others have a hard and steadfast rule not to process cost transfers

Must comply with institutional cost transfer policy

Other institutions are still processing cost transfers manually


NIH Update As in the past, will be issuing non-competing awards at

80% Upward adjustments considered after final appropriations

determined New Scientific/Grants Management Policies

Centralized database of Human Genome Data Ensures broad access to data sets Policy effective 1/25/08:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-088.html

NIH Update (cont’d…)

New Limits on Application Resubmissions http://grants.nih.gov/grants/plicy/

resubmission_q&a.htm NIH Salary Cap

2008 rates to be announced soon, continue to use 2007 rates ($186,600) for now

Include full salary information so NIH can adjust based on future limits


Elimination of Paper Award Letters (NoA) Effective 1/1/08, NIH will no longer send hard copies NoA’s sent by email to AOR and accessible via eRA

commons Financial Status Report Submissions

Effective 10/1/07: must be done electronically Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act

Impact: We’ll have to provide information about subrecipients and subcontractors to federal agency so they can enter into centralized database accessible by all

Information “fields”: amount, description of purpose, name and location of performer and where work is to be conducted, others


FY 2008 NIH OIG Audit Workplan Focus will be on cost principles, time and effort reporting, cost

transfers, admin and clerical salaries being charged directly Compensation for Grad Students

Tied to zero level NRSA postdoc stipend Includes salary/wages, fringe benefits and tuition remission No adjustments made to noncompeting award years; grantees may

rebudget to accommodate higher levels Policy on Data Sharing

Apps for $500K or more in a year must include plan for sharing final research data

Must include plans for sharing model organisms when appropriate Upcoming NIH seminars; see

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/seminars.htm


NSF Update America COMPETES legislation passed 8/07—Creating Opportunities to

Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science NSF implementation expected Dec ’07/Jan ’08 Some changes coming down the pike: Post doc Research fellows must be “mentored” Responsible Conduct of Research—training component in Institutional

Training Grants must be described in proposal Reporting of Research Results—progress reports and final reports must

address activities undertaken to meet training, mentoring requirements Sharing Research Results—must be made available to all Cost Sharing: Yes, it’s back! For Major Research Instrumentation (MRI)

program as of now but will also apply to 2 new programs not yet authorized/released by NSF

MRI—proposals include ****30% cost sharing requirement; specify on Line M of 1030

****ONLY “EXCEPTION”; NO cost sharing required of *NON-PhD granting universities

NSF Update (cont’d)…

Revised Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) Expected December ‘07 Will address and describe “Transformative Research” Revised language for intellectual merit and broader impact

statements NSF will be specific as to what they want

Effective 1/5/08 proposals will be evaluated against new review criteria


Updated font requirements Arial, Courier New, or Palatino Linotype must be

10 pts or larger Times New Roman, Computer Modern family

must be 11 pts or larger Math formula’s, equations, tables have no limits

but must be readable May advise PI’s to start using now

Proposal reviews automatically accessible by PI via Fastlane


Merit Review website: http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/meritreview/index.jsp Send to new PI’s NSF program staff will be required to complete a

mandatory merit review class Being implemented to help provide guidance and

consistency re: evaluation of proposals


www.research.gov web portal NSF’s next adventure in E-commerce Seeking participation from other federal agencies Goal is one-stop shop for information

Search on a PI name and see entire portfolio of proposals submitted to any participating agency, with status, reviewer comments, etc. as well as access to award information

Bookmark http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/ for updates from the NSF policy office

DoD Cap on Indirect costs Inserted into FY08 DoD appropriations bill Capped at 35% total costs Translates into 53.8% tdc= no effect on

NYU WSq currently

Survey of research administration at NYU 33 administrators 482 faculty Common complaints

Payroll OBR accuracy and readability Interfaces among offices

nyu research administrator’s forum november 29, 2007

Documents

contd cost

contd need

cost transfers

update contd adobe

adobe office

upload slide

high profile slide

competitive proposal