Announcements

We wanted to bring to your attention that there are various funding opportunities dedicated to COVID-19 research available on our newly designed website, COVID-19: FAQs and Resources Relating to Research. You can find these opportunities, as well as other resources to support researchers within the section Conduct COVID-19 Research.

Select funding opportunities are available on this website, and there are instructions on how to use Pivot, a funding opportunity database, as a one-stop shop to identify COVID-19 opportunities from federal, private, and global sponsors. You will be able to view a curated list of COVID-19 funding opportunities, and join the COVID-19 Pivot group to receive weekly funding newsletters sent every Monday morning.

We hope you find the new website easy to navigate to answer many of your research-related questions. Please continue to email questions to [email protected]; we will make sure your questions are routed to the right person so you receive a timely answer. For questions concerning Pivot, email [email protected].

Dear Colleagues: 

As you plan for the ramp-down of your laboratories, the Office of the EVPR is available to assist you in any way that we can.

As a start, we have attached a Laboratory Ramp-Down Checklist prepared by EH&S to help you to understand the tasks that are needed to ramp-down your research laboratory.  Not all of the items will be applicable to all laboratories.  EH&S is an important resource to help you to manage the ramp-down in a way that is safe for those essential personnel who are required to maintain permitted research functions and that is protective of valuable equipment.  As laboratories include hazards of many kinds, it is important that all tasks are done carefully and with the correct personnel.  EH&S is available to answer any questions or provide other assistance.  Please contact [email protected].

In addition, there are already a number of FAQs posted on the EVPR website.  Because there are many questions coming in from researchers about issues relating to the ramp-down, we will be adding additional FAQs as we receive questions that could be of interest to the broader community, organized under topics for easy access to what you need. All FAQs will be updated as necessary. You should check the FAQs frequently.

Please feel free to call any of our units –SPA, CTO, EH&S, Human Research Protection Office /IRBs, IACUC, RCT, and Postdoctoral Affairs--with questions or requests for assistance.

Sincerely,

The Office of the Executive Vice President for Research

The Offices of the Executive Vice President for Research have collected FAQs relating to COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) and its impact on research activities. These can be found on the Research homepage, or directly at COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus): Frequently Asked Questions Relating to Research.

These FAQs contain information about COVID-19 as it relates to the conduct of research, research operations, and sponsored projects. This webpage will continue to be updated frequently as new information is received. As always, if you have questions about sponsored projects, reach out to your assigned SPA Project Officer. Other research-related matters may be addressed in the FAQs. We will continue to keep you posted.

Dear Colleagues,

We write to remind you of three important NIH requirements: (1) disclosure of “Other Support;” (2) prior approval for “Foreign Components;” and (3) disclosure to Columbia of all Financial Interests related to your institutional responsibilities, including honoraria or other compensation and sponsored travel provided by non-U.S. institutions of higher education.

Other Support

The following is NIH’s definition of Other Support, as clarifiedin the recently updated NIH Grants Policy Statement (GPS) for FY 2020: 

• “Other support includes all resources made available to a researcher in support of and/or related to all of their research endeavors, regardless of whether or not they have monetary value and regardless of whether they are based at the institution the researcher identifies for the current grant.”

• “This includes resources and/or financial support from all foreign and domestic entities, including but not limited to, financial support for laboratory personnel, and provision of high-value materials that are not freely available (e.g., biologics, chemical, model systems, technology, etc.)” 

(GPS Sec. 2.5.1, emphasis added)

We expect additional guidance regarding Other Support requirements in the next few months. However, please note that NIH is paying particular attention to appointments and affiliations at entities other than the applicant institution, even where unpaid or honorary, and especially when such an affiliation is listed on a publication that acknowledges NIH funding. If you have an appointment or affiliation that affords access to resources for research, you must include it in the Other Support disclosure. If the appointment does not afford access to resources, you mustnonetheless disclose it, e.g., in your Biosketch.  

NIH has not yet updated its instructions or forms for submission of Other Support or Biosketches; in the meantime, please follow the above guidance in the existing forms. If you have questions about whether or where to disclose a particular item, please contact your SPA Project Officer, and err on the side of transparency.

Foreign Components

We also remind you that NIH requires prior approval for all Foreign Components involved with NIH-funded research.  A Foreign Component is defined as:

The existence of any “significant scientific element or segment of a project” outside of the United States, in other words

1. performance of work by a researcher or recipient in a foreign location, whether or not NIH grant funds are expended and/or
2. performance of work by a researcher in a foreign location employed or paid for by a foreign organization, whether or not NIH grant funds are expended.

Even if your original proposal did not include a foreign component, sometimes a project may evolve to include one. If that is the case, you must obtain approval from NIH before the performance of any work on the NIH project begins in a foreign location. 

If you believe you may need to obtain approval for a “significant scientific element or segment” of an NIH project to be performed outside the U.S., please contact your SPA Project Officer as soon as possible. 

Disclosures of Outside Financial Interests Related to Your Research

Columbia policy has long required disclosure at least annually of all outside Financial Interests related to a researcher’s institutional responsibilities. This definition is broad. If you are being asked to participate in an outside activity because you are a professional in your field at Columbia, then it may reasonably appear that the requested activity is related to your Institutional responsibilities and you should disclose it. This includes any payments and sponsored travel from:

• U.S. and non-U.S. companies, foundations, and professional societies
• non-U.S. institutions of higher education
• non-U.S. government entities

All disclosures are made through Rascal. If you are unsure about what to disclose, err on the side of transparency. If you have questions, please contact the Office of Research Compliance and Training.

We will continue to keep you updated as we receive new information. For additional information and resources on science and security, please visit Columbia’s website dedicated to this topic: https://research.columbia.edu/science-security.

Sincerely,

Rudi Odeh-Ramadan                                    

Vice President for Research Administration

Naomi Schrag

Vice President for Research Compliance, Training, and Policy

The slides and webinar recording are now available of the NIH Rigor & Reproducibility Policy webinar that took place on Friday, September 27th, 2019.

• Slides
• Webinar recording

You will need your Columbia UNI and password in order to access the slides and video. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Michelle C. Benson, PhD email at [email protected]

Stephanie F. Scott, MS, CRA email at [email protected]

NIH & AHRQ issued announcements that their salary caps increased from $189,600 to $192,300.  See NIH Guidance NOT-OD-19-099 and AHRQ Guidance NOT-HS-19-013.  The effective date of this increase is January 6^th, 2019. 

In summary, this is how the $192,300 salary cap can be applied:

• Proposals: NIH and AHRQ proposal budgets may be submitted using the new cap.
• Active Awards: Can rebudget funds to allow for increase in rates. It is a good time to verify all salary allocations, and adjust salary distributions as appropriate.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to your SPA Project Officer. 

More Department of Defense (DoD) Funding Opportunities have been released since I sent the original announcement on February 28th, 2019.  There are opportunities for postdocs all the way through the full professor level. Pre-applications are required for most programs. Take a look at the following recently released announcements:

• Alcohol and Substance Abuse Disorders Research Program (ASADRP)
• Autism Research Program (ARP)
• Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP)
• Military Burn Research Program (MBRP)
• Neurofibromatosis Research Program (NFRP)
• Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP)
• Parkinson's Research Program (PRP)
• Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP)

You may wish to subscribe to individual CDMRP programs so you may receive information about opportunities as soon as they are available specific to your area of interest:

https://ebrap.org/eBRAP/programSubscription/Subscribe.htm

As a reminder, we have a subscription to Pivot for you to search for all types of funding opportunities. For more information about Pivot, along with quick start guides, go to Find Funding using Pivot.

The Opioid Crisis and the Need for Research

As you may know, the US is facing a crisis with opioid abuse, with over 47,000 deaths in 2017. In response, many federal agencies are providing funding opportunities to research that addresses this crisis. The opportunities are broad in scope and inclusive of many scientific disciplines.

Columbia’s Response to the Opioid Crisis

The Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research is dedicated to addressing this national crisis, and strongly supports multi-disciplinary research and new collaborations to examine all aspects of the problem. The Irving Institute is facilitating working groups and meetings where investigators of all scientific areas can connect and collaborate on new research projects. Harold Pincus, MD, and Jennifer Humensky, PhD, are leading this initiative. If you'd like to learn more about participating in the working groups or get on the email list, email [email protected].

Funding Initiatives

NIH's HEAL initiative has numerous funding opportunities. For more information and to subscribe to its listserv, visit NIH Heal Initiative Funding Opportunities. In addition, the Irving Institute’s dedicated webpage on the opioid crisis contains a link to additional federal and non-federal opportunities, updated in real-time, using Pivot, the funding opportunity database.

NIH continues to update the Fellowship Parent Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) with information on participating NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs). See the latest list of updates in the March 8^th version of their Weekly Guide:

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/WeeklyIndex.cfm?WeekEnding=03-08-2019

There have been corrections made with regards to NIAID, NIBIB, and NEI.  Therefore, it is possible you saw that an IC was not participating in a fellowship, but now they are!

The important thing to note is if you are not sure, or have other questions, review the Table of IC-Specific Information provided in each Parent FOA, and contact the Scientific Program Contact.  All Parent FOAs are located at https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/parent_announcements.htm.

I wanted to draw your attention to the NIH Center for Scientific Review’s Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program. If eligible, it is an opportunity to improve your grant proposal writing skills by experiencing first-hand how grant applications are evaluated. You will also network with accomplished researchers, and learn how applications are reviewed and scored.

To qualify for the ECR program, you must:

• Have at least 2 years’ experience as a full-time faculty member or researcher in a similar role. Post-doctoral fellows are not eligible.
• Show evidence of an active, independent research program.  Examples include publications, presentations, institutional research support, patents, acting as supervisor of student projects.
• Have at least 2 recent senior-authored research publications in peer-reviewed journals in the last 2 years. In press publications are considered and author position can be as single author, corresponding author, or first or last author.
• Have not served on a CSR study section in a role other than mail reviewer. (Mail reviews do not include participation in the meeting.) Review service at other agencies or at other NIH institutes/centers are not disqualifiers.
• Current funding is not required. (Anyone who has received an R01 award is over-qualified and could be considered as a temporary reviewer.)

For more information: https://public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers/BecomeAReviewer/ECR

Pre-recorded Webinars on Funding Opportunities:

The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) of the Department of Defense (DoD) invites the research community to view a webinar series on funding opportunities in both research and career development.  The second webinar, which was posted today, walks through three categories of hypothesis-driven, high risk/high gain funding opportunities - Initial Concept Awards, Early Idea Awards, and Established Idea Awards. The key features associated with these categories include innovation, impact, and research strategy and feasibility. In addition, the relevant peer and programmatic review criteria will be reviewed.  Find the webinars here: https://cdmrp.army.mil/pubs/Webinars/webinar_series

Currently Available CDMRP FY 19 Funding Opportunities

There are opportunities for postdocs all the way through the full professor level. Pre-applications are required for most programs. See the Synopsis and Eligibility Criteria for each area below, which contains all deadlines.

Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP)

* This program offers very broad topic areas in many areas of biomedical research. See FY19 Topic Areas.

• PRMRP Funding Opportunities
• Synopsis and Eligibility Criteria

Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP):

• BCRP Funding Opportunities
• Synopsis and Eligibility Criteria

Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Program (TSCRP)

• TSCRP Funding Opportunities
• Synopsis and Eligibility Criteria

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research Program (ALSRP)

• ALSRP Funding Opportunities
• Synopsis and Eligibility Criteria

Combat Casualty Care Research Program (JPC-6)

• JPC-6 Funding Opportunities
• Synopsis and Eligibility Criteria

Email Alerts

More funding opportunities will be released soon. You may wish to subscribe to individual CDMRP programs so you may receive information about opportunities as soon as they are available specific to your area of interest:

https://ebrap.org/eBRAP/programSubscription/Subscribe.htm

Reminder: If interested in finding other types of funding opportunities, don’t forget to create a Pivot account (the funding opportunity database), using your Columbia email address. Pivot Quick Start Guide.

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to inform you that on March 1^st, 2019, Pivot is moving to https://pivot.proquest.com and the current Pivot URL, pivot.cos.com will be discontinued. Traffic to cos.com will not automatically redirect to the new URL. Please update your bookmarks, hyperlinks and other materials to the new URL. All other functionality in Pivot will remain the same, including your account and any searches you have saved.  Should you have any questions about Pivot or the URL change, please feel free to reach out to Ricardo Andrade at [email protected] or Stephanie Scott at [email protected].

The following announcement came directly from the NSF Policy Office on 2/15/2019. It is copied and pasted below.

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Dear Colleagues,

Due to the recent lapse in appropriations, implementation of the revised NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), (NSF 19-1) was postponed. We are pleased to announce that the revised PAPPG will now be effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after February 25, 2019. Significant changes include:

• Addition of Research.gov as an option for proposal preparation and submission, and proposal file updates; 
• Revision of eligibility standards for unaffiliated individuals;
• Specification that conference proposals over $50,000 and all equipment proposals must include the Collaborators and Other Affiliations information in the proposal submission;
• Revision of resubmission guidelines for NSF programs that accept proposals at any time;
• Implementation of NSF’s policy on sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, or sexual assault;
• Specification that proposers are required to have a policy or code-of-conduct that addresses sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, and sexual assault, and that includes clear and accessible means of reporting violations of the policy or code-of-conduct. This policy or code-of-conduct must be disseminated to conference participants prior to attendance at the conference as well as made available at the conference itself;
• Emphasis on the importance of training faculty in the responsible and ethical conduct of research;
• Incorporation of existing patent policy into the PAPPG. This policy was previously implemented by regulation at 45 CFR 650; and
• Numerous clarifications and other changes throughout the document;

You are encouraged to review the by-chapter summary of changes provided in the Introduction section of the PAPPG.

To learn about the changes in the revised PAPPG (NSF 19-1), please view the latest NSF Proposal & Award Policy Update webinar.

While this version of the PAPPG becomes effective on February 25, 2019, in the interim, the guidelines contained in the current PAPPG (NSF 18-1) continue to apply. We will ensure that the current version of the PAPPG remains on the NSF website, with a notation to proposers that specifies when the new PAPPG (including a link to the new Guide) will become effective.

Associated award terms and conditions (including RTC NSF Agency Specific Requirements, GC-1, and FL-26) will also be effective for proposals submitted or due, on or after, February 25, 2019. Cooperative Agreement Conditions (CA-FATC) and CA-FATC Modifications and Supplemental terms and conditions are effective for new awards and funding actions to existing awards beginning on February 12, 2019.

If you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact the DIAS/Policy Office at [email protected].

Sincerely,

The National Science Foundation

NIH just posted in the Extramural Nexus this morning a reminder to applicants of the new Inclusion Across the Lifespan Policy. It requires grant applicants to address the age-appropriate inclusion or exclusion of individuals in Section 2.4 of the Study Record in the PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trial Information Form.

As a reminder, this policy, and all other policy changes impacting NIH proposal preparation for 2019 can be found on our website at New NIH FOAs and Application Changes for 2019. We’ll continue to update this page with additional resources and materials as they become available.

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to your SPA Project Officer.

The Resumption of Operations at NSF page on the NSF website has been updated with important information, including identification of new deadline dates for specific solicitations and Dear Colleague Letters. Please review the website carefully, and you may need to go to the NSF Program Officials for clarifications.