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CRC and Cornerstone News
Remember to check FSU’s STATE publication, for any listings of newly awarded grants from the CRC or Cornerstone programs. Decisions for First Year Assistant Professor (FYAP) funding for summer 07-08 will be made on/about January 9 as will funding decisions for the Multidisciplinary Support (MDS) program.
January deadlines:
- 1/4/08 Cornerstone AHPEG and SSPEG proposals and signed DSR Forms were due from all who previously submitted Letters of Intent to file a proposal
- 1/11/08 Planning Grant (Spring) proposals and signed DSR Forms are due
February deadlines:
- 2/04/08 Small Grant (Spring) proposals and signed DSR forms are due
- 2/11/08 Developing Scholar nominations are due
- 2/18/08 Distinguished Research Professor nominations are due
- 2/25/08 NEW program! Distinguished University Scholar nominations are due
See http://www.research.fsu.edu/crc/index.html or http://www.research.fsu.edu/cornerstone/index.html for program details.
Remember: All DSR forms related to CRC or Cornerstone programs are to be delivered to Jan Townsend in 109 Westcott, not to the Sponsored Research Services Office. All proposals submitted for CRC or Cornerstone programs are to be submitted electronically at https://submissions.research.fsu.edu/crc/index.html
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Florida Department of Health IRB Revised Policies
This is a notice for Principal Investigators doing research that falls under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Health IRB: The Florida Department of Health IRB has revised its policies regarding continuing reviews (renewals). It is vitally important that PIs timely respond to DOH IRB continuing review notices. If you do not timely respond (60 days prior to expiration of approval date), and inform DOH whether you are continuing your research, closing your research, or any other status prompts that are requested by DOH, your study will expire and be considered in noncompliance. Once in noncompliance, the DOH may determine that your protocol is to be terminated, impose conditions on whether any data collected may be utilized, and may report the noncompliance to OHRP for further action. In short, an "expiration" at DOH is considered noncompliance with the DOH IRB policies and OHRP regulations. All PIs are encouraged to take timely action and respond to the continuing review notices. For more information, please contact the FSU IRB office at 644-7900 or 644-8633.
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NIH Reduces Temporary “Error Correction Window” for Electronic Grant Applications from Five Business Days to Two
National Institutes of Health will reduce the “error correction window” (i.e. the time allowed after the submission deadline to address NIH system identified errors/warnings) from five (5) business days to two (2) business days for all electronically submitted grant applications with submission deadlines on or after January 8, 2008.
This change will mean that electronic applications will be considered “on-time” if all of the following criteria are met:
- All required registrations must be complete prior to the initial submission.
- Initial successful submission to Grants.gov must have a timestamp on/before 5:00 p.m. local time of the applicant organization on the receipt date.
- Applicants must correct errors and/or warnings within the two business days following the receipt date (referred to as the “error correction window”).
- All application corrections must be in response to a system-identified error/warning (application submissions with additional changes may be refused).
- If final submission is sent after the receipt date, a cover letter attachment must be included identifying the system-identified errors/warnings that have been corrected.
The two business days provided to view the assembled application image in eRA Commons will remain unchanged. It is NIH’s ultimate goal to define “on-time” submission as having an error-free application (i.e., passes Grants.gov and eRA Commons system-enforced business rules without errors) with a Grants.gov timestamp on/before 5:00 p.m. local time of the applicant organization on the receipt date. NIH temporarily relaxed the definition of “on-time” submission by allowing a five business day “error correction window” for the first six electronic application receipt cycles following the initial transitions to electronic applications. The “error correction window” allowed applicants to adjust to the system-enforced business rules and ensured that Grants.gov and NIH system processing times did not interfere with successful submission. Progress on both fronts allows us to close this window which helps speed up the process of getting the applications in to review and ultimately award.
Since beginning the NIH Electronic Submission of Grant Applications Program in December 2005, both NIH and the applicant community have gained valuable experience with the electronic process and forms. NIH now receives 80% of its applications electronically through Grants.gov using the SF424 (R&R) form set. Experience and system improvements have led to a significant rise in the number of applicants that successfully complete the submission process within two attempts. Over 93% of applicants submitting to the November 5, 2007 R01 receipt date successfully completed the process within two submission attempts. We also have measured dramatic improvements in Grants.gov and NIH response times so applicants can now quickly turn around any needed error corrections. The November 5 applicants experienced an average response time (from submission to Grants.gov to receiving a response from NIH) of 33 minutes and a median response time of 10.42 minutes.
NIH remains committed to ensuring applicants are not penalized for Grants.gov or NIH system issues that are beyond their control and has contingency plans in place to handle those situations. The “error correction window” is a separate concept and has no effect on the contingency policies. Below is a summary of the electronic application process:
- Find funding opportunity announcement of interest and download application package
- Prepare application
- Submit application to Grants.gov
- Wait for NIH to retrieve application
- Check submission status in eRA Commons
- Correct all errors and, at applicant's discretion, any warnings and resubmit through Grants.gov
Note: If corrections are made after the receipt date, the "error correction window" applies
- Check assembled application image in eRA Commons within the two business day "application viewing window"
- Submission complete
Inquiries regarding this notice should be directed to:grantsinfo@nih.gov
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Working with Companies
From time to time, FSU research faculty members are approached by people from industry who are interested in discussing their research under a confidentiality agreement. These conversations can lead to SBIR/STTR partnerships, research collaborations, and sometimes licenses.
In July 2005, the Office of IP Development and Commercialization began tracking this type of activity on campus. It was found that from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2007 faculty members were approached 96 times to enter into a confidentiality agreement. Of those 96 agreements, 59% were completed within the fiscal year and took an average of 41 days to get fully signed. The remainder of the agreements are still under negotiation or have died due to loss of interest by either the originating company or the faculty member.
Of the agreements that were signed, 41 of them started with FSU offering its own template and had an average completion time of 31 days. The other 16 started with a template that was offered by the interested company and was completed in 66 days, or more than twice as long on average. Although there are many reasons for the extra delay when negotiating terms of such agreements offered by industry, typically these types of agreements contain terms unfavorable to FSU. A detailed list of these terms can be found at http://www.techtransfer.fsu.edu/cdas.html.
This study will be available on the OIPDC website within the next two weeks. For more information about this study, please contact Eric McNair at 644-3328, or emcnair@fsu.edu.
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