Grants.gov will phase out PDF-based application packages on 12/31/17

Grants.gov has announced that as of the end of 2017, they will no longer make available or accept the PDF-based application packages, now known as "legacy packages". Instead, Grants.gov offers their online application preparation and submission website, Workspace. You can learn more about how to use this new tool here: Grants.gov Workspace Overview. Additionally, many of the Federal sponsors already have, or have recently created their own online submission tools, such as NSF's Fastlane and NIH's ASSIST, that you may also have the option to submit through.

If your proposal must go through Grants.gov for submission, get familiar with Workspace early and give it a go -- pretty soon you won't have a choice anymore!

Authors weigh costs and benefits of applying for grants

In an 2015 article in PLOS One that has been making the rounds lately, Ted and Courtney von Hippel report on a three-year study looking at 195 scientists and social scientists submitting a total of 287 federal research proposals. On average, they found that each proposal took 116 hours of work for the PIs, and an additional 55 hours of Co-Investigators' time. Was it worth it? On the whole, they calculated that each additional proposal submitted in a year increased the chances of being funded, but beyond that, participants in their study reported that even when unfunded, the experience of writing a proposal benefitted them in other ways such as helping to create new collaborations, fine-tune scientific thinking or train grad students and/or post-docs. You can read the entire article here: https://tinyurl.com/ycny2f82.

A summary of new NIH policy changes

On the award side, the National Institutes of Health have made some changes to their policies on:

• final progress reports
• training for investigators involved in NIH-funded clinical trials, and
• reporting of NIH-funded clinical trials.

On the proposal side, there are changes in policy regarding:

• the items allowed to be included in appendices
• post-submission materials, and
• acceptable fonts/text color.

Finally, starting tomorrow you may submit an interim progress report rather than a final report if you are ending one grant cycle and waiting for the next cycle to begin. See this webpage for complete details and links to the Notices involved.

Simple tips for writing a proposal

You've probably seen many of these before, but it never hurts to be reminded! CJA Bradshaw's Twenty tips for writing a research proposal.

NSF's Biology Directorate offers tips on "Broadening Participation"

Along with the NSF's very familiar mandate of "Broader Impacts" is the lesser-trumpeted "Broadening Participation" -- but it may be just as important to your Biological Sciences Directorate proposal. See this publication for more information on what they mean by this, and how to incorporate it into your next proposal.

NIH Seminar on Program Funding and Grants Administration, Baltimore, June 26-27

The NIH Regional Seminar in Baltimore is a good opportunity to learn about the NIH and personally meet some NIH personnel. From the NIH:

What does the 2-day seminar offer?
The NIH Regional Seminar offers a comprehensive program for the NIH extramural community about the NIH grants process and related policies, including such topics as peer review, grant writing for success, pre-award and post-award issues for administrators and investigators, compliance, animal and human subject research, how to interact electronically with NIH, and mapping your career with NIH. In addition, special interest sessions are provided on topics like research integrity, data sharing, foreign collaborations, the NIH Intramural Program, and more.

More information and registration link here: Notice NOT-OD-14-083

New fringe benefits rate posted

The fiscal year 2015 fringe benefits rate has been posted to our Institutional Information page (at the bottom). Please use these rates for any applicable grant proposal that will start after July 1, 2014.

A reminder: Fringe benefits are only directly budgeted into a grant if we are not receiving our full on-campus or off-campus indirect cost rates.