Sponsored Project News University of Vermont Sponsored Project Administration

Issue No.12
October 2011
Sponsored Project News
University of Vermont
Sponsored Project Administration
Trusted, Expert, Skilled Partner in the University’s Research Enterprise
comments or suggestions through our website
Feedback button.
In this issue read about the latest Annual
Report, some new faces, the new SPA and
InfoEd Training websites, policy updates as
well as some news from Research Protections
Office and Office of Technology
Commercialization and more.
Annual Sponsored Project Report
Welcome to Sponsored Project
Administration (SPA)
United at last! The Office of Sponsored
Programs (OSP) pre-award services and Grant
and Contract Administrative Services (GCA)
are now one unit located on the ground level of
the Waterman Bldg in Suite 211-218. Our
move was completed on July 1 and we are now
a single integrated unit, named Sponsored
Project Administration, providing support
throughout the grant life-cycle.
Already we are enjoying easier inter-office
communication resulting in efficiencies in
keeping pre and post award systems in sync, a
reduction in travel time to and from meetings
and progress in working toward collective
goals. In the coming months the SPA staff will
be moving forward in new work teams to
implement the final recommendations for
workflow, training, metrics, operating
philosophy and guiding principles. We would
love to hear from you about your impressions,
In Fiscal Year 2011 the University received
over seven hundred awards totaling more than
$128 million. See the Reports link on the SPA
website for summary data and detailed
information by academic unit. While the
volume of awards provides a convenient
measure of the University’s extramural
funding, the true measure of these efforts lies in
the activities undertaken. These data represent
sponsored project activities across the
University’s colleges and schools and paint a
picture of the work of a vibrant, productive,
and excellent faculty.
About Sponsored Project News
With this issue, the newsletter continues its
publication series with a new name reflecting
the University of Vermont’s newly integrated
Sponsored Project Administration office.
Sponsored Project News is issued periodically
throughout the academic year to provide grantseekers information about potential sponsors,
agency updates, grant policy changes,
compliance requirements, and University
proposal submissions and awards.
Questions or comments should be directed to the
editor: Hilda Alajajian, Grants Resources
Specialist, [email protected]
SPA’s New Website
A new SPA website redesigned and created
from scratch has been up and running since
July. The new website is organized around the
stages of the grant life cycle and includes some
new features. Under the Find Funding tab, is
the Limited Competitions webpage with
internal and sponsor deadline dates and a link
to the campus announcement. Towards the top
just under the SPA homepage banner there is a
ribbon that runs through all the website pages,
SPA A-Z topics providing an alpha list of
topics linking to the desired information. The
middle section is divided into six categories of
general information with quick links to current
information frequently requested. One of those
categories entitled Training includes a quick
link to the Sponsored Project Training Program
now offered annually to faculty and staff. On
the bottom right of the homepage is a Feedback
Button allowing you to send us your comments
and suggestions.
website can be found in the Training section of
SPA’s home page As well as in the SPA A-Z
topics listing.
InfoEd Training Website
The InfoEd Training website has also been
redesigned and the homepage streamlined into
two major sections. The Proposal
Development (PD) section opens up to instruct
users how to upload proposal documents and
send the proposal through the electronic routing
system. The Proposal Tracking (PT) section
opens up to show users how to access data in
proposal records and how to create reports.
Quick Guides for PD and PT with basic steps
and instructions have been posted in each
section. InfoEd Quick Links on the right
column provide information about security
roles and delegation access. The InfoEd Dept
Contact link provides a handy updated listing
of assigned Deans, Department Chair,
Department Administrators and SPA
administrators for a given department. This
clarifies who will receive proposals for review
and approval in the electronic routing system
and who can access the PT record for a given
department or unit. The InfoEd Training
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New and Familiar Faces
Pictured above are pre and post award
administrators outside their new offices.
This month SPA is very happy to welcome
three new individuals to the department. Tam
Truong began on October 10 as a post-award
administrator. He will be responsible for dayto-day administration, customer service, and
financial report preparation for a set portfolio
of awards. Renee Hunt re-joined SPA on
October 13 as Accounting Lead and will
oversee the billing and AR team, and
collaborate with the Business Process Reengineering Team for PeopleSoft upgrades,
testing, and general continuous improvement.
Dziyana Aydin will join the department on
October 31, in a long-term temporary position
that will allow for flexibility in meeting the
UVM Sponsored Project News
current and long term needs of SPA. Dziyana
already has award set up experience in
PeopleSoft and will be able to make an
immediate positive impact.
Conflict of Interest
All Investigators involved in a UVM
sponsored research project are now required to
declare whether or not they have a potential
conflict of interest in UVM’s new on-line
Conflict of Interest tracking system.
SPA will not process new research awards until
all investigators have made this declaration online. If you do not have and do not acquire any
financial interests that require disclosure, you
need only attest to that fact on an annual basis
through this simple on-line interface; and you
will be prompted annually when it is time to do
so. Please take the time now to review the
University policy
(http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmppg/ppg/grants/researchcoi.pdf)
and the frequently asked questions
(http://www.uvm.edu/~ospuvm/COI/FAQ.htm), and visit
the site ( https://spogi.uvm.edu/UVM_COI/ ) to declare
whether or not you have a potential financial
conflict of interest. Taking action now will
eliminate unnecessary delay in setting up your
new research awards.
Useful Information about Data
Management at UVM
The National Science Foundation (NSF), as
well as many other funding agencies,
frequently ask that proposals include
information about how data generated from
sponsored research activities will be managed,
handled, and shared. Enterprise Technology
Services (ETS) has prepared useful information
about UVM data handling and storage to assist
investigators in preparing the data management
section of proposals. See the link Data
Management Information on the SPA website
(under D in A to Z).
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News from the Research Protections
Office (RPO)
The Research Protections Office relocated
from Colchester to Waterman this summer and
is housed right next to the SPA offices with a
separate access door right down the hall.
In a recent notice of advanced rulemaking,
entitled Human Subjects Research Protections:
Enhancing Protections for Research Subjects
and Reducing Burden, Delay, and Ambiguity
for Investigators, the Department of Health and
Human Services (DHHS) seeks public input on
an array of issues related to the ethics, safety,
and oversight of human research, before
making changes to the regulations that have
been in place since 1991. Although this
advanced notice is very early in the rulemaking process, it suggests a sweeping
overhaul of these regulations with the intention
of strengthening protections for human research
subjects.
UVM Sponsored Project News
If you are interested in more information, the
Office of Human Research Protection
(OHRP)’s web page has links to the news
release, the full proposal, a 4-page summary
table of the proposed changes, and FAQs:
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/anprm2011page.html
If you would like to send your thoughts or
concerns for us to consider as we develop
UVM’s comment, please send them to the RPO
office, 213 Waterman Building or to
[email protected]. We also encourage researchers
to comment directly. If you decide to comment,
we suggest that you to read the entire proposal,
as there are questions imbedded within the
document for which specific comments are
requested. Comment period closes 10/26/11.
Office of Technology
Commercialization (OTC)
Todd Keiller has recently transitioned from his
role as Director of the Office of Technology
Commercialization to that of part-time
consultant. He has managed the university’s
broad innovation capacity and nurtured the
OTC from its infancy with leadership and
vision. We wish him well as he pursues
business ventures closer to home.
There is a new face in the OTC. Beth M. Hill
has joined the OTC team as Program Specialist
and Assistant to the Senior Advisor to the
President. Most recently Beth has been
collaborating on freelance writing projects and
previously served as a Senior Publishing
Assistant at Dartmouth Journal Services in
Waterbury. She lives in Richmond with her
husband Dave and two teenage sons, Curran
and Wyatt.
What can OTC do for you? Give OTC a call or
stop by the offices in Given E201. You’ll have
an opportunity to talk about your innovation(s),
current work, research findings, etc. Then
OTC can assess the commercial viability of
your concepts and guide you through the
licensing/patenting process. The Office of
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Technology Commercialization is where
collaboration meets innovation.
GRANTSMANSHIP TIP
SPA is now receiving a campus-wide
subscription to Research Development &
Grant Writing Newsletter devoted to
proven strategies to achieve funding
success. The first issue arrived on October
15. Look for it in the section with the
Funding Search Tools. Access requires a
UVM NetID and password.
PeopleSoft Tips and Tricks
Did you know that for all sponsored projects,
the InfoEd number can be found in PeopleSoft?
Did you also know that in almost all cases, the
InfoEd number and the PeopleSoft award
number are one in the same?
In PeopleSoft, all of the demographic
information for a sponsored project, including
sponsor, PI, award start and end date, and all
associated project numbers, is on the Award
Profile page. The PeopleSoft award number
can also be viewed on this page and in nearly
all cases is simply the InfoEd number with four
leading zeroes. If the InfoEd number is 12345,
then the PeopleSoft award number is
000012345!
After logging into PeopleSoft, navigate to
Grants > Awards > Award Profile, where you
may search by many different parameters,
including Award ID, Project, or PI Name. You
can even use your InfoEd number to search by
selecting Award ID “contains” as a search
parameter:
UVM Sponsored Project News
Many sponsor agencies require the submission
of a form called “Current and Pending Support”
which shows the Investigator’s current
(awarded) and pending proposal effort
commitments. A Step by Step Guide
can be found on SPA’s InfoEd Training
Proposal Tracking web site.
We have created two separate “Global Reports”
in InfoEd to help you get this data with
minimum effort. You simply need to open the
report, put in the person’s name, and click the
run button. See the guide for details.
Agency updates
In a small number of cases, due to the
sponsor’s billing requirements, the InfoEd
number is not able to be used as the PeopleSoft
award number. In those cases, the PeopleSoft
award number is a nine-digit value that begins
with the letters CON, followed by six numbers
(for example CON000123). In those cases, you
may find the InfoEd number in PeopleSoft by
clicking the Additional Information hyperlink
at the bottom of the Award Profile page and
then viewing the Related Proposals information
that pops up with the InfoEd number.
National Institutes of Health now requires
grantees to use the No-Cost Extension feature
in the eRA Commons to notify NIH when they
exercise their one-time authority to extend,
without additional funds, the final budget
period of a grant. As of October 1, 2011 NIH
no longer accepts these notifications via other
communication channels. Grantees are
reminded that all such notifications must be
submitted through the Commons before the
project period expires. Once the eRA
Commons link is closed, such an action
becomes a prior approval request and must be
submitted for consideration to the Grants
Management office of the NIH awarding
component. See NIH NOT-DO-11-098 for
more information.
InfoEd Tips and Tricks
Department administrators will be pleased to
learn they can use InfoEd to get awarded and
pending support for people in their department.
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UVM Sponsored Project News
EVENTS and SPA CALENDAR
Next IBC (Institutional Biosafety Committee) submission deadline
(completed Risk Assessment due prior to submitting to IBC)
(view full mtg. schedule) http://www.uvm.edu/~ibc/uvminfo/deadlineandmeetingdates.pdf
October 25, 2011
Next CHRBS (Comm. on Human Research in the Behavioral Sciences) submission deadline
(view full mtg. schedule) http://www.uvm.edu/irb/reference/sect16-meet-dateBS.pdf
October 25, 2011
Next CHRMS (Committee on Human Research in the Medical Sciences) submission deadline
(view full mtg. schedule) http://www.uvm.edu/irb/reference/sect16-meet-dateMS.pdf
November 2, 2011
Next IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) submissions deadline
(vet review due prior to submitting to IACUC)
http://www.uvm.edu/~iacuc/uvminfo/deadlineandmeetingdates.pdf
November 14, 2011
Next National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Grants Conference
(view upcoming conferences and details) http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/outreach.jsp
March 19-20, 2012
Next National Institutes of Health (NIH) Regional Seminar
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/seminars.htm
TBA (2012)
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UVM Sponsored Project News