External Funding Advisor
February 2017 Newsletter
In this Issue:
  1. Director's Reminder- External Collaboration & Students on NIH Grants
  2. Featured Funding Opportunities- Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
  3. NIH Updates- New Appendix Policy
  4. NSF Updates-  Public Access Requirements
  5. Timely Topic- Grant Resource Center Services Overview
Director's Reminder
Notify the Office of Sponsored Programs Early of Any External Collaboration

Often the inclusion of an external collaborator on a proposal can delay a submission timeline. Please notify the OSP early-on of any external collaboration so that the OSP can help manage some of the possible hurdles below: 

1) Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI)- If the collaborator is partially responsible for the design, conduct, or reporting of a proposal that is federally-funded research or PHS or EPA funded then the collaborator may need to submit a JMU Financial Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). If the external collaborator prefers, they can follow their own institution's Conflict of Interest requirements instead of submitting a disclosure form to JMU. To do so, their authorized official will need to sign and complete the External Collaborator Certification. On this certification, their authorized official would need to certify that they are registered in the FDP Institutional Clearinghouse and that the investigator(s) who will participate in this proposal will comply with the Conflict of Interests policy(ies) of their institution. Please see the following URL for additional information: http://www.jmu.edu/researchintegrity/fcoi/fcoiform.shtml

2) Subrecipient vs. Contractor Checklist- For each external collaborator on a budget, the Principal Investigator should complete the Subrecipient vs. Contractor Checklist and email the checklist to the OSP to confirm that the entity is properly classified as either a contractor or subrecipient. This classification affects the legal relationship JMU will have with the entity, as well as the indirect cost calculation and budget classification. For additional information, please see the Collaboration Guide

3) Budgeting for Contractors- With the new Federal regulations (the "Uniform Guidance" - 2 CFR 200 - Replacing OMB Circulars A-21 and A-110, among others), we have had to make some changes on how we budget for contractors. JMU has to document 'best value' for contractors. Procurement performs this service rather than OSP. Therefore at the time of proposal, we cannot preselect a contractor for goods and services. They may only be identified as a placeholder in the proposal. For additional information, please see the Pre-Award Guide for Procurement. If awarded, the PI will need to plan to work with Procurement. 

4) Sponsor Requirements (Letters of support, biosketches, etc.)Please provide the collaborator's contact information to the OSP, so we may assist in coordinating required materials prior to proposal submission
Do You Have Students on Your NIH Grant?

They must be registered in eRA Commons and have a user credential prior to submitting your programmatic reports. It is best practice to establish these accounts at the outset of the project so there are no delays when it comes time to report. 

Please contact the OSP with your students' full names, email addresses and whether they are graduate or undergraduate students. We will set them up with user accounts. 

Who needs an eRA Commons Account for Progress Reporting? 
You must include eRA Commons credentials for personnel with the following roles who participate in a NIH funded project for at least one person month: 
  • Project Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) and any multiple- PD/PIs
  • Undergraduate 
  • Graduate Student 
  • Postdoctoral 
Featured Funding Opportunities
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) accepts proposals to develop public humanities programs for audiences in Virginia. 

Open Grant Program
Open to proposals on a wide range of subjects, for projects in any format, and for amounts typically up to $10,000. 

Deadline: April 15, October 15

Draft proposals are strongly encouraged. 

Please contact VFH staff at vfhgrants@virginia.edu or 434-924-7202 for assistance. 

Discretionary Grant Program
Smaller grants of up to $3,000. There is no deadline for this program; applications are accepted at any time. Applicants should contact VFH staff in advance before submitting a Discretionary Grant proposal.

VFH Areas of Interest:
Six key areas of priority have been established by the VFH for its work in Virginia, and these are also subjects of particular interest for the Grant Program. They include: 
  • Books, Reading, and Literacy
  • Rights and Responsibilities
  • Media and Culture 
  • Violence and Community 
  • Science, Technology, and Society 
  • Virginia History 

Other areas of long-term interest and commitment for the VFH and its grant programs include: 

  • Teacher education programs (especially those related to Virginia's Standards of Learning)
  • African American history and culture
  • Native American history and culture
  • The history and culture of other minority communities in Virginia 
  • Virginia's folklife and traditional culture(s) 
  • The future of rural Virginia 
NIH Updates
New Appendix Policy

NIH has eliminated most appendix materials. This change is intended to rectify inequities in the peer review process that can arise from submission of inappropriate or excessive appendix materials by some applicants and consideration of appendix materials in peer review by some, but not all reviewers. 

For Due Dates on or after January 25, 2017, you may only include the following in the appendix section of your application:

For applications proposing clinical trials (unless the funding opportunity announcement provides other instructions for these materials):
  • Clinical trial protocols 
  • Investigator's brochure from Investigational New Drug (IND), as appropriate

For all applications:

  • Blank informed consent/assent forms
  • Blank surveys, questionnaires, data collection instruments 
  • Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) specified items 
  • If appendix materials are required, review criteria for that FOA. Applications submitted without those appendix materials will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed. 

Consequences for submitting disallowed appendix materials
Applications submitted for due dates on or after January 25, 2017 will be withdrawn and not reviewed if they are submitted with apendix materials that are not specifically listed in this Notice or the FOA as allowed or required. 

Reference: NOT-OD-16-129

NSF Updates
NSF Public Access Requirements

Going back to 2013 federal agencies have had to roll out requirements to make the published results of federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication. This resulted in requirements for applicants to include data management plans in applications to better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research. 

Applicability: If you are the Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator of an NSF award that resulted from a proposal that was submitted or due on or after January 25, 2016, then this requirement applies to you. 

As outlined in section 3.1 of the plan "Today's Data, Tomorrow's Discoveries," NSF requires that either the version of record or the final accepted manuscript in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and papers in juried conference proceedings or transactions must:
  • Be deposited in the NSF public access repository (NSF-PAR) on Research.gov, see tutorial link below;
  • Be available for download, reading and analysis free of charge no later than 12 months after initial publication; 
  • Possess a minimum set of machine-readable metadata elements in a metadata record to be made available free of charge upon initial publication; 
  • Be managed to ensure long-term preservation; and 
  • Be reported in annual and final reports during the period of the award with a persistent identifier that provides links to the full text of the publication as well as other metadata elements. 

NSF Public Access Policy: Frequently Asked Questions, NSF 16-009 

Depositing Publications Tutorial

Timely Topic
Grant Resource Center Services Overview

During the January Symposium the Center for Faculty Innovation's hosted the Grants Resource Center (GRC) to provide an overview of the resources their website and staff can provide to faculty interested in pursuing external funding opportunities. Below is a glimpse of GRC's resources discussed during the workshop: 

Publications
GRC's three r egular publications provide members with federal and private funding opportunity alerts, federal meeting coverage, and successful proposal development strategies and advice. 
  • GrantWeek: An e-newsletter about program details, pending legislation and federal appropriations, proposed changes to agency rules, and member spotlights. Published every Monday. 
  • Bulletin: Synopsizes hundreds of funding alerts from Grants.gov, Federal Register, and Federal Business Opportunities. Published every Tuesday and Friday. 
  • Deadlines: Programs with competitions closing in the next 30/60/90 days. Published monthly. 

GrantSearch Database
This database contains over 1,500 funding opportunities that are cyclical, make multiple awards, and are national/regional in scope. You can search funding opportunities by: academic subject, activity, funding sponsor, deadline month, and keyword. 

Faculty Alert System
Faculty and staff can sign up for monthly email notifications about funding opportunities related to their interests. 

Staff Services
GRC's staff is available to answer funding opportunity-related questions, perform funding opportunity searches, obtain funded proposals for reference, assist members with scheduling agency visits, meet with faculty to help them determine funding possibilities and prepare for meetings with program officers, and promote networking among research administrators, grant program staff, and grant recipients. 

To gain access to the Grants Resource Center please contact the Office of Sponsored Programs for JMU's user information. 

If you would like additional information about GRC's services and resources or are interested in hosting a department specific GRC training session, please contact Megan Resch in the Office of Sponsored Programs. 

  Notice:

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

  Office of Sponsored Programs | James Madison University | 540-568-6872|  jmu_grants@jmu.edu  |