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Come join the newly formed Office of Research and Graduate Studies (ORGS) on Facebook where will we publish funding opportunities, graduate studies information, spotlight awesome projects, and more!

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ORGS combines the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs with the Graduate School - both now under the leadership of Dr. Pauline Sampson.

Texas Department of Transportation Research Proposals

Texas Department of Transportation announces the FY2019 RFP #1 schedule and project solicitations (dates are approximate):

April 12	University proposals are due to RTI
April 16-May 16	Proposals are evaluated
May 16	Proposal evaluations are due to RTI
June 7-14	Review board and FHWA approval
June 19-21	RTI notifies universities of project awards

The list of open research requests is located here:

TxDOT Open Research Request for Proposal

All proposals must adhere to the updated TxDOT University Handbook which is also available on the above website.

Please contact Beverly Morehouse in the Office of Research and Graduate Studies as soon as possible if interested.

National Endowment for the Humanities Increases Fellowship amount

NEH has increased the Fellowships monthly stipend from $4,200 to $5,000. As a result, the minimum award is now $30,000 (for six months of full-time work). The maximum award is now $60,000 (for twelve months of full-time work).

Program Statistics

In the last five competitions the Fellowships program received an average of 1,125 applications per year. The program made an average of 77 awards per year, for a funding ratio of 7 percent.

The number of applications to an NEH grant program can vary widely from year to year, as can the funding ratio. Information about the average number of applications and awards in recent competitions is meant only to provide historical context for the current competition.

For more information, please visit the program website: NEH Fellowships

Grant Writing Workshop at Lamar University March 9, 2018

Lamar University invites SFA faculty and staff to their upcoming Grant Writing Workshop with representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institute of Health (NIH).

The event is March 9, 2018 and the FREE registration includes breakfast and lunch. The event is limited to 95 persons (and 50 have already registered).

Registration must be received no later than January 19, 2018 by 5:00pm.

https://www.lamar.edu/forms/research-and-sponsored-pgms/grant-writing-workshop-registration.html

Virtual NSF Grants Conference

Experience the Fall 2017 National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants Conference virtually. The upcoming conference in Phoenix, AZ on November 13-14, 2017 will be webcast live to the research community. View the plenary sessions to gain key insights into a wide range of  current issues at NSF including: the state of current funding, new and current policies and procedures, and pertinent administrative issues. Click here to register.  Check out the webcast agenda for more information. These sessions will be recorded for on-demand viewing once the conference has concluded.

RCA applications now available

The FY18 guidelines and application materials for the Research/Creative Activity Grants (RCA) are now available on the ORSP website.

The RCA grants provide substantive support for research and creative activities and are awarded through the annual fall competition. These grants are intended for larger faculty research and creative projects that require more support and time.

In addition to a 6-week summer salary for the PI, the RCA grant provides funding up to $10,000 for other allowable costs. Refer to the guidelines for more detail.

All Research Enhancement programs are available to individuals with a full-time, tenure-track academic appointment as detailed in SFA policy 8.11 (Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Instructor, and Librarian I-IV).

The final deadline to submit to ORSP is Friday, October 27, 2017 at 5 p.m. Individual departments and colleges may have earlier deadlines.

Guidelines and applications are available on the Internal Funding section of the ORSP website.

FY18 Research Enhancement Program

The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and the University Research Council are pleased to announce the FY18 competition for the Research Grant Development and Research Pilot Studies competitions.

The Research Grant Development (RGD) program provides support for a faculty member to develop an external research grant application. The faculty member may either receive a summer stipend or receive a course release in the fall/spring semester (and the grant will cover the costs of the faculty replacement or adjunct).

The Research Pilot Studies (RPS) program provides support of up to $3,000 to assist faculty in initiating pilot projects. Allowable costs include travel to collect data, supplies, materials, non-capital equipment, and student assistant wages.

The deadline for spring projects is October 9, 2017 with recipients notified in December. For summer 2018 and fall 2018 projects, the deadline is March 23, 2018.

Guidelines and applications are available on the ORSP website.

Important Information for External and Internal Grants - upcoming deadline August 25, 2017

ALL GRANT AWARDEES

If you had any active grant (internal or external funds) during FY17, please review all expenditures to make sure the correct Banner FOP was charged. Any Expenditure Transfer Requests must be received by ORSP no later than August 25, 2017.  The ORSP form is here:

               http://www2.sfasu.edu/orsp/Forms/CTR_CostTransferRequest.pdf

Internal grant awardees (Banner fund 150030):

•  All expenditures (except August salary) must post by 8/31/17.
• If you will have any unused funds, inform Sherry Tucker before 8/25/17 so we can repurpose the funds as they do not roll forward.
• Submit final reports to Sherry Tucker no later than 9/30/17 (FRG/RCA awards or project support awards).
• For any publication minigrants, please request a gratis copy of the publication and send to Sherry when available (also suitable are a link to the publication, a PDF version, or an abstract).

Comprehensive Research Program awardees (Banner fund 131610):

• All expenditures (except August salary) must post by 8/31/17.
• If you will have any unused funds, inform Jennifer Hanlon before 8/25/17 so we can repurpose the funds as any unspent monies are returned to the state.
• If you have been awarded FY18 funds from the Comprehensive Research Program (fund 131610), I am in the processing of setting up those awards and will email you once completed.

 External grant awardees:

• If any salary was paid from your grant during FY17, review and certify those reports before August 25. 2017. Both fall 2016 and spring 2017 terms are available in addition to persons paid monthly. I have not had time to review, so if you see anything possibly incorrect, please contact me. If any expenditure transfers are needed, the August 25^th deadline also applies.

                Effort instructions: http://www2.sfasu.edu/orsp/tam_part4.html#effort

          

               All fall 2016 and spring 2017 effort must be certified no later than 8/25/17.

•  If your grant ends anytime between now and 12/31/17, please contact me as soon as possible if you need to request a time extension or budget revision. Otherwise, the Controller’s Office will proceed to close out the grants as they end.

      One last update

      The internal grant applications and guidelines are being updated for FY18. Once available on our website, we will post announcements on the ORSP blog and on SFA today.

Internal Funding Update

During FY17, the University Research Council awarded more than $222,000 to provide funding for project support, travel to disseminate research, publication in peer-reviewed journals, and for other research and creative activities. Some of the funded projects this year include:

Dr. Michael Maurer, Department of Agriculture: Establishment of Turfgrass from Seed and Sod in Sand-Based Systems Combining Sprinkler and Subsurface Drip Irrigation

Dr. Flora Farago, School of Human Sciences: How, When, and Why Early Childhood Educators Talk about Race with Young Children?

Dr. Luis Aguerrevere, Department of Psychology: Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Pain-Related Variables

Dr. Vjetha Koppa, Department of Economics & Finance: Do Housing Vouchers Reduce Domestic Violence? Evidence from a Lottery

Dr. Matibur Zamadar, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry: The Preparation of Tin Porphyrin-Ruthenium Complex for Targeting Tumor Hyooxi

By June 2017, all of this year’s funds were awarded. The total funding amount for FY18 has been slightly reduced due to budget cuts. There will be new applications and updated guidelines for the upcoming FY18 year. Please watch our website and SFA Today for an announcement when these materials are available.


 

Baker Institute Invitation — Ten Big Ideas: Realizing NSF’s Vision for Future Research and Discovery

TEN BIG IDEAS: REALIZING NSF’s VISION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY Featured Speaker France A. Córdova, Ph.D. Director, National Science Foundation

JOIN US Monday, April 10, 2017 6:00 pm — Reception 6:30 pm — Presentation James A. Baker III Hall Rice University   YES, I WANT TO ATTEND Register Now

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) long-standing relationship with the science and engineering community has always generated a continuous stream of leading-edge ideas that have produced new discoveries, inventions and approaches. With input from this community in mind, the NSF launched an extensive planning exercise to identify ideas for investment to ensure that future generations will reap the benefits of fundamental scientific research. France A. Córdova, Ph.D., director of the NSF, will discuss the “10 Big Ideas” that emerged from this effort, many of which cut across disciplinary boundaries and require novel methods and approaches. This event, part of the Rorschach Lecture Series organized by the Physics and Astronomy Department at Rice University, is sponsored by the Baker Institute Science and Technology Policy Program, in conjunction with Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and Wiess School of Natural Sciences. Support for the Civic Scientist Program is generously provided by Benjamin and Winifer Cheng.

ORSP Spring 2017 Workshop Schedule

Upcoming changes to the Common Rule

The Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects has been revised with new requirements becoming effective 1/19/2018. An overview of the significant changes to the Common Rule include:

■Establishes new requirements regarding the information that must be given to prospective research subjects as part of the informed consent process.

■Allows the use of broad consent (i.e., seeking prospective consent to unspecified future research) from a subject for storage, maintenance, and secondary research use of identifiable private information and identifiable biospecimens. Broad consent will be an optional alternative that an investigator may choose instead of, for example, conducting the research on nonidentified information and nonidentified biospecimens, having an institutional review board (IRB) waive the requirement for informed consent, or obtaining consent for a specific study.

■Establishes new exempt categories of research based on their risk profile. Under some of the new categories, exempt research would be required to undergo limited IRB review to ensure that there are adequate privacy safeguards for identifiable private information and identifiable biospecimens.

■Creates a requirement for U.S.-based institutions engaged in cooperative research to use a single IRB for that portion of the research that takes place within the United States, with certain exceptions. This requirement becomes effective 3 years after publication of the final rule.

■Removes the requirement to conduct continuing review of ongoing research for studies that undergo expedited review and for studies that have completed study interventions and are merely analyzing study data or involve only observational follow up in conjunction with standard clinical care.

For further information, visit:Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects

 


 

Research/Creative Activity Grant Competition Reminders - Deadline 10/31/16 at 5 pm

As the deadline for this year's FRG/RCA competition gets closer, review all guidelines and instructions before submission. Contact ORSP with any questions at extension 6606.

The chart below gives an overview of the deadlines and copies to provide:

DEADLINES	Responsibilities of:
	Project Director (PD)	Chair	Dean	ORSP
Internal (Optional)	Submit 1 copy of proposal to Department Chair	Review proposal and provide feedback to PD	N/A	Available for proposal review for content and format through October 21
Internal (Optional)	Incorporate Chair/ORSP comments and submit revised proposal to Chair	Submit 1 copy of revised proposal to ORSP and required copy(ies) to Dean	Review proposal and provide feedback to PD	AFTER October 21, Provide recommendations based on application checklist (FORMAT ONLY)
ABSOLUTE DEADLINE Monday, October 31, 2016 5 pm	Ensure recommendations have been incorporated and submit 12 copies of final proposal to Dean	N/A	Submit 11 copies and one original of final proposal to ORSP. Retain 1 copy in Dean’s Office	Receive 12 copies (including 1 original)of final proposal and prepare for University Research Council review

Contact the current URC member in your department/discipline to discuss the feasibility of your project:

Robert Culpepper	Professor	Business
John Hendricks	Professor	Liberal and Applied Arts
Candace Hicks	Assistant Professor	Fine Arts
Joey Bray	Associate Professor	Forestry and Agriculture
Tingting Xu	Assistant Professor	Kinesiology
Nicholas Long	Associate Professor	Mathematics & Statistics
Brian Oswald, Chair	Professor	Forestry & Agriculture
Odutayo Odunuga	Associate Professor	Chemistry
Chris Comer	Professor	Forestry & Agriculture
Brandon Fox	Assistant Professor	Elementary Education
Linda Reynolds	Librarian	Steen Library

 

 

 

 

You're Invitied to morning coffee & snacks with ORSP

Morning coffee and snacks
with ORSP

Faculty and staff are invited to join us on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 in the ORSP Office, LAN 421. Drop in anytime between 9 and 11 am.

Enjoy snacks, meet the ORSP team,

and learn about internal grants available to faculty.

Call extension 6606 for more information. 

Internal Funding Available

OSRP is pleased to offer funding opportunities to faculty members pursuing research and creative interests for the upcoming year. Internal grants are available to individuals with a full-time tenure track academic appointment as professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, or librarian I-IV.

The largest grant, the Research and Creative Activity Faculty Research Grant, provides a six-week summer salary and funding up to $10,000 to support travel to collect data, to purchase minor equipment, supplies and materials, for hourly student assistants wages, and specific services.

The Research Grant Development grant provides support of up to $5,000 to assist faculty members who have the potential for obtaining significant funding from an external sponsor to develop a fundable research proposal. The Research Pilot Studies Grant provides support up to $3,000 to assist initiating pilot projects to generate data for a specific project for extramural funding.

Mini-grants also are available on a rolling deadline for travel, project and publication support.

Deadlines are as follows:

• Research and Creative Activity Faculty Research Grant: Oct. 31 for spring and summer funding
• Research Grant Development and Research Pilot Studies grants:    Nov. 16 for spring funding (Apr. 14, 2017 for summer funding)

Follow this link for more information: http://www2.sfasu.edu/orsp/tam_part2.html

Please contact Sherry Tucker at ext. 6606 with any questions.