• SPO Providing "Drop Box" for Electronic Proposals
• February RAC Forum: Grants.gov and Cost Principles
• CIRM Requires Financial COI Disclosure
• Reminder: Financial Disclosure and SBIR/STTR Proposals
• OPHS Offering Seminar on Human Subjects Research on February 22 and 28 for Grad Students
• New Forms and Updates for Human Subject Investigators
• Research at Berkeley and Annual Report Available Online
• USDA CSREES Grants.gov: PDF Only
• 2007 Federal Budget at a Standstill
• NIH FY 2007 Policy for Awards: No Inflationary Adjustments for Non-Competing Renewals
• NIH Issues Interim Guidance on Salary Limitation
• NSF on the Continuing Resolution
• New NIH Web Site for Award Data
• NIH Clarifies Late Submission Policy for Multi-PI Applications

The Sponsored Projects Office now has a "drop box" for electronic proposal files. The service enables secure uploading of electronic proposals instead of sending them as email attachments. The secure connection will ensure encrypted transmission of your proposal over the network. The SPO Electronic Proposal Drop Box is available at https://coeus.berkeley.edu/dropbox/.

The Drop Box facilitates submission of large electronic files during the review process, ensures security, and avoids potential problems with email disk quota limits. Electronic proposals must be submitted to SPO in paper copy with a signed Proposal Review Form and other required documents at least five days before the agency deadline: https://mossberg.berkeley.edu/CalMessages/display_message.asp?d=6 /6/2006&s=101. As the proposal is finalized for submission, electronic copies can be deposited in the Drop Box for retriveal by SPO research administrators. The SPO Drop Box is NOT intended for initial transmission of proposals to SPO.

Using the SPO Drop Box

• First, log in to the secure site using your CalNet ID. Next, use the drop-down menu to choose the SPO staff member you are working with. Then, use the selection box to browse and upload your file. (Before uploading Grants.gov applications, use the FormChecker program, https://www.spo.berkeley.edu:8443/ggchecker/, to identify errors.)
• To help identify your proposal, please include the PI's last name, the agency or acronym, and the SPO proposal number (if known) in the filename. Examples: Smith_NIH_20071234.xfd; Jones_NASA.pdf
• The system will automatically send email to the SPO staff member with your name (from your CalNet ID) included. SPO staff will then log in to the system and retrieve your proposal.
• If you need to revise your document, you will need to upload a complete new file to the Drop Box; files already in the Drop Box cannot be edited.

At the February 13 RAC Forum, we will share experiences with Grants.gov and the February 5th NIH R01 deadline. Also, Paula Milano, Assistant Director of Financial and Management Analysis, and Darrell Erickson, ERSO Assistant Dean, Research Support, will be giving a presentation on "Cost Principles for Sponsored Agreements."

The February 13 meeting will be held from 10:30 to noon in in the Lipman Room in Barrows Hall, as will both the March 13 and April 10 meetings.

Upcoming agendas and meeting schedules for the RAC Forum are available at http://rac.berkeley.edu/racforum.html. Notices will also be sent out by email. To be added to the mailing list, please contact Shelley Sprandel at spore@berkeley.edu or 2-8122.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) requires that grantees maintain a financial conflict of interest policy. CIRM uses the federal Public Health Service regulations as an acceptable standard. Therefore, effective immediately, the Berkeley campus requires that investigators submitting CIRM proposals include the Conflict of Interest Checklist and, if appropriate, completed Federal Financial Disclosure forms with their application packages. The federal disclosure forms and more information on financial conflict of interest disclosure are available on the Conflict of Interest Committee web site.

Federal financial conflict of interest disclosure is not required for Phase I proposal submissions, but is required for Phase II of federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

SBIR/STTR programs may follow either a standard submission practice, where Phase I and Phase II proposals are separate and distinct, or the "Fast-Track" option, where a single proposal submission covers both Phase I and Phase II of a project.

For standard submissions, federal financial disclosure forms must accompany the Phase II proposal when submitted to the Sponsored Projects Office. For Fast-Track proposals, the disclosure forms must be filed before Phase II work begins. PIs should consult with their Small Business collaborators to determine which type of proposal submission is planned. If a disclosure is positive in either instance, review and approval by the Conflict of Interest Committee is required before any subaward can be accepted.

Because SBIR/STTR applications include a Small Business sponsor, State of California 700-U disclosure is also required, and must be submitted with the proposal for either standard or Fast-Track proposals. Any positive disclosure in this area must also be reviewed and approved before any subaward can be accepted.

If you have any questions, please contact Jyl Baldwin, Conflict of Interest Committee Coordinator, at jbaldwin@berkeley.edu or 642-8117. The Berkeley campus Guidelines for Participation in SBIR/STTR Programs is available on the Conflict of Interest web site at http://researchcoi.berkeley.edu/sbirsttr.html.

The Office for the Protection of Human Subjects is offering a two-part seminar in February for graduate students, led by Rebecca D. Armstrong, D.V.M., Ph.D., Director of the Office for the Protection of Human Subjects. The seminar is targeted at a graduate-student audience, however, research administrators and faculty may also attend. The preliminary schedule is below; check the CPHS web site in early February 2007 for exact times and room locations.

The Committee for Protection of Human Subjects has revised some of the CPHS application forms. The new forms will be posted on the CPHS web site by the end of January along with updated instructions. Investigators are encouraged to use the new forms immediately. The new forms will be required as of March 1, 2007.

Other updates on the CPHS website include information about the UC systemwide Memorandum of Understanding regarding IRB review at other UC campuses and a succinct list of the forms necessary for each type of review submission that CPHS/OPHS handles.

The latest editions of SPO's annual publications, Research at Berkeley and Sponsored Projects Annual Report, are now available on the SPO web site. The brochure and the annual report provide information on campus awards and on faculty honors during the past fiscal year. In fiscal year 2006 the Berkeley campus received more than $469 million in contract and grant awards.

At least one recent campus application to USDA through Grants.gov was rejected because the attachments were Word rather than PDF files.

Investigators and staff preparing applications to USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) programs should begin working on applications early and read program announcements and guidelines carefully.

Among other changes, CSREES is requiring Grants.gov for many programs, including the National Research Initiative (NRI) Competitive Grants Program. CSREES will return applications without review that exceed program funding limits, do not meet FY 2007 priorities, or do not follow formatting guidelines (e.g., attachments must be PDF files, page limitations, margin size, and font size). The NRI Request for Applications includes a very useful checklist that clearly identifies the requirement for PDF format.

Guidance and help are available on the CSREES "Resources for Applying Electronically" web page at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/electronic.html. The NRI Request for Applications is available at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/fundview.cfm?fonum=1606.

For general Grants.gov information, see the SPO web page, "Grants.gov `Apply' at Berkeley," at http://www.spo.berkeley.edu/Procedures/grantsgov.html. Before submitting Grants.gov proposals to SPO, use the FormChecker program, https://www.spo.berkeley.edu:8443/ggchecker/, to identify errors.

Congress has passed only two of the eleven appropriation bills that give federal agencies their budgets for fiscal year 2007, which started on October 1, 2006. Only the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security have final budgets; all other federal agencies are operating under a Continuing Resolution that puts budgets at the lower of FY 2007 or FY 2007 House funding levels.

The current Continuing Resolution is set to expire on February 15. However, Democrats in the new Congress have said they they planned to extend a similar resolution through September 30, 2007, the end of the fiscal year.

According to American Association for the Advancement of Science R&D budget analysis, if the latest draft appropriations become final, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and most other R&D funding agencies would see their budgets remain flat in 2007, a greater than two percent loss after adjusting for inflation."

For current news on federal budget appropriations for research, two good sources are the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/) and the Association of American Universities (http://www.aau.edu/budget/fy2007.cfm). The American Physical Society also provides analysis on research funding (http://www.aps.org/policy/issues/research-funding/index.cfm).

NIH is taking steps to deal with the expectation of no increase in funds because of the current status of the federal budget, coupled with a greater number of applications. These steps are outlined in the "NIH Fiscal Policy for Grant Awards ­ FY 2007," published in the December 15 NIH Guide at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-030.html.

According to the notice, NIH is instituting the following fiscal policies:

NIH will not make inflationary increases for existing non-competing renewal awards in FY 2007. NIH institutes and centers (ICs) will have the flexibility to supplement non-competing awards on a case-by-case basis, but these supplements will not be considered as part of the base for future budgetary adjustments.

By using uncommitted funds and the savings from not funding inflationary increases, NIH aims to maintain the stability of the NIH investigator pool and fund approximately 9600 new and competing Research Project Grants, a number similar to that of FY 2005. Each IC will apply the following guidelines:

1. Maintain a number of new investigators comparable to the average of the most recent five years.

2. Develop IC-specific mechanisms to insure that first time grantees applying for their first renewal and who receive review scores near the nominal payline be given appropriate consideration with the goal of avoiding serious attrition or closure of new laboratories.

3. Develop IC-specific mechanisms so that established grantees with insufficient other support and who receive review scores near the nominal payline be given appropriate consideration, with the goal of not losing outstanding laboratories.

4. Each IC will have flexibility to adjust its policies for funding other mechanisms according to its specific scientific and programmatic imperatives.

The notice states that the policy for issuing non-competing awards under the current continuing resolution will continue as stated in NIH Notice NOT-OD-07-004 (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-004.html). Until the final FY 2007 appropriation is enacted, NIH will issue non-competing research grant awards at a level below that indicated on the most recent Notice of Award—generally up to 80 percent of the previously committed level.

The National Institutes of Health has published interim guidance on the "salary cap" on awards. For the past eighteen years Congress has legislatively mandated a limitation on direct salary for individuals under NIH awards.

NIH is operating under a Continuing Resolution that applies the terms of the FY 2006 Appropriation Act, which restricts the amount of direct salary to Executive Level I. Effective January 1, 2007, the salary limitation for Executive Level 1 has increased to $186,600. The rate was $183,500 for the period January 1 through December 31, 2006.

For more information on the NIH salary cap, see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/salcap_summary.htm.

Once the Department of Health and Human Services Appropriation for FY 2007 is enacted, NIH will publish final guidance on the salary cap.

The National Science Foundation has issued a "Dear Colleague" letter, "Effect of a Long-term Continuing Resolution on NSF Programs," available at http://nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf0720/nsf0720.jsp.

The letter states that under the terms of the current Continuing Resolution, NSF is being funded at the FY 2006 level, $400 million below the Administration's FY 2007 request. NSF is continuing to issue program announcements and solicitations as previously planned. However, it is likely that NSF may be unable to fund a number of activities planned for this fiscal year. NSF will keep the science, engineering, and education communities informed, and will continue efforts to minimize any negative impacts to the nation's scientific capability and economic competitiveness.

The National Institutes of Health has developed a web-based tool to find the dollars awarded to any one organization or department within the organization. The NIH web site, Award Data for Individual Organizations, is published at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm.

UC Berkeley statistics are available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/award/trends/FindOrg_Detail.cfm?OrgID=577502.

The National Institutes of Health published a clarification of the implementation of the NIH Policy on Late Applications for applications involving multiple principal investigators in the December 8 NIH Guide (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-026.html).

The announcement states that "one of the explanations for late submission that may lead to acceptance of an application is service by the Principal Investigator on an NIH extramural review group during the time frame that would reasonably be expected to be used to prepare the application. For multiple PI applications, this will apply when any one (or more) of the Project Directors/Principal Investigators (PD/PIs) is involved with service on an NIH extramural peer review group."

The notice lists changed standing receipt dates for applications and states that "NIH will consider accepting late applications based on the acceptability of the explanation and the processing time required for two different kinds of submission/receipt dates" (regular standing and expedited standing dates).