Competed annually, UMBC's START awards provide up to $25,000 in research funding for faculty who will use these funds to better position themselves for further scholarly work that is not internally funded. To that end, priority is given to untenured, tenure track faculty still establishing themselves, to tenured faculty who are re-establishing themselves after interruptions, and to tenured faculty entering new areas dependent on interdisciplinary collaboration.

Also competed annually, the SURFF program provides $6,000 in summer salary to early-career faculty who would benefit from the opportunity to focus on establishing their scholarly independence.

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice is to alert the NIH extramural community that NIH is strengthening enforcement of longstanding closeout requirements, outlined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement Section 8.6, Closeout. NIH has consistently reminded recipients of their responsibility to submit timely, accurate final grant expenditure reports, and has communicated the critical need for recipients to reconcile cash transaction reports submitted to the HHS Payment Management System (PMS) with expenditure reports submitted to NIH.  In order to fulfill agency requirements under the Grants Oversight and New Efficiency (GONE) Act and HHS grants policy, NIH will no longer delay the closeout of awards unless the recipient submits a prior approval request to the IC providing an acceptable written justification..  Without prior approval from the awarding IC, NIH will initiate unilateral closeout for all awards that fail to meet closeout requirements within 120 days as required by the NIH Grants Policy Statement (NIH GPS) Section 8.6. See below for details.

Background

Recipient Responsibilities

The requirement for timely closeout is generally a recipient responsibility. However, NIH may initiate unilateral closeout if a recipient does not provide timely, accurate closeout reports or does not respond timely to NIH requests to reconcile discrepancies in grant records.

NIH recipients must submit a Final Federal Financial Report (FFR), Final Research Performance Progress Report (F-RPPR), and Final Invention Statement and Certification (FIS) within 120 calendar days of the end of the period of performance (project period), as required in section 8.6 of the NIH GPS. The reports become overdue the day after the 120 calendar day period ends. Cash transaction data continues to be submitted directly to and processed by PMS. It is the recipient's responsibility to reconcile reports submitted to PMS and to the NIH awarding Institute or Center.

NIH Actions

NIH is committed to addressing and reducing grant closeout delays and to enhance compliance with HHS regulations and policies, and the GONE Act.  Therefore, NIH will strictly enforce its closeout policies. When recipients fail to submit timely reports, NIH will initiate unilateral closeout. It is important to note that for financial closeout, if a recipient fails to submit a final expenditure FFR, HHS policy directs NIH to close the grant using the last accepted Federal Cash Transaction Report’s cash drawdown amount. This could be considered a debt or result in disallowed costs.  In addition, failure to correct recurring reporting problems may cause NIH to take one or more actions that may include, but are not limited to, corrective actions, withholding of further awards, suspension or termination.

DATE:            November 20, 2017

TO:      Business Managers/Department Chairs/Center Directors/Faculty

FROM:  Stan Jackson

RE:     OSP deadlines over the Winter Break, Dec. 23, 2017 – Jan. 1, 2018

________________________________________________________________

 This is a special announcement concerning the OSP schedule for reviewing/approving proposals with deadlines to federal and other agencies that occur during Winter Break this year. 

 Please note:

 1. All proposals with submission deadlines occurring between December 23,  2017 and January 1, 2018 must be fully routed, ready for submission, and released to the OSP office by the close of business on December 19, 2017; and

1. All proposals with submission deadlines occurring between January 2 - 3, 2018 (the first 2 business days after the break) will be due to OSP by the close of business on December 20 & 21, 2017, respectively.

This schedule is consistent with our current policy, which requires the submission of complete proposals to OSP at least three business days before the agency submission deadline, since OSP will be closed during the Winter Break. 

The campus closure during Winter Break will cause a heavy workload on OSP staff, so we will enforce our current policy more consistently.  Proposals received after the OSP deadlines specified above will be reviewed on a first come first serve basis and will be submitted only if time permits.  

Thank you for your understanding. Thank you for all of your hard work during this past year on extramural proposals and awards and have a happy holiday season.

Dear Colleagues,

Dear Colleagues,

Tenure track and research faculty are invited to submit applications for internal funding to support undergraduate research assistants for the current academic year. This program - the UMBC Supplement for Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE) - is one of several internal funding opportunities currently posted at http://research.umbc.edu/internal-funding-opportunities.

In previous years, the SURE program has been known as the UMBC Undergraduate Research Assistantship Support (URAS) program. For the SURE program, faculty are the applicants, and supported students must be in their first four semesters at UMBC. In the complementary Undergraduate Research Award (URA) program, students are the applicants and more students are eligible. I encourage you to pursue both opportunities with different students.

SURE applications are due on Monday, September 25th. Award maximums are $1,500 and the only allowable expense is the student's hourly wage. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
—
Don Engel, Ph.D., PMP
Assistant Vice President for Research
Affiliate Assistant Professor of Physics
Affiliate Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle, ITE 220
Baltimore, Maryland 21250
donengel@umbc.edu, 410-455-2837