December 2015 Newsletter

Book Publishing Workshop Set for December 10

You have done your research, and are ready to publish a book…but how do you do that? The Office of Proposal Development will host a book publishing workshop on Dec. 10 from 3 p.m. — 4:30 p.m. in the Center for Global Engagement (The Globe) – room 2600. The goal of the workshop is to help faculty navigate publishing their own research into books.

Three faculty members representing Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences and STEM disciplines, who have published extensively, will share their methods and expertise on getting their books published. Devin Soper from FSU Libraries will also be on the panel to discuss the role of digital publishing. Please come with any questions you may have. For more information about this workshop, and to register, please visit the workshop page.

Federal Lobbying Activities Report is Due Jan. 5

Federal regulations require that FSU report to the U.S. House and Senate all time and expenses related to federal lobbying activities conducted by its faculty and staff. To aid us in completing those reports accurately, employees who participate in federal lobbying related to university activities should report those activities to FSU’s Office of Federal Relations. The Federal Lobbying Activities Report covering the period October — December 2015 should be submitted to the Office of Federal Relations no later than Jan. 5, 2016. To access the form and additional information, please visit the Federal Relations website.

Council on Research and Creativity Updates

First Year Assistant Professor proposals were due on Nov. 9; funding decisions will be made late-January.

Committee on Faculty Research Support proposals (including Director/Chair/Dean approvals) were due Dec. 1, 11:59 pm. The request for proposals (RFP) can be found here.

Arts & Humanities Program Enhancement Grant proposals (including Director/Chair/Dean approvals) are due by Jan. 13, 2016 at 11:59 pm. The request for proposals (RFP) can be found here.

Nominations for the Honorary Recognition Programs are due in January and February:

Developing Scholar Award nominations are due by Jan. 22, 2016 at 11:59 pm
Distinguished Research Professor Award nominations are due by Feb. 12, 2016 at 11:59 pm
Distinguished University Scholar Award nominations are due by Feb. 22, 2016 at 11:59 pm

Please visit the DSA, DRP, and/or DUS Request for Proposals (RFP) for more details on the requirements.

FSU Awards Report

A monthly awards report is available online. This report will allow interested faculty, staff and others to learn more about who has been recently awarded research grants. Click here to access the latest report.

Funding Opportunities

Please click here to access some of the latest funding opportunities available for the arts, humanities, social sciences, STEM disciplines and medicine.

Washington Update

Please click here to learn of recent activities in Washington affecting higher education. Included are budget and appropriations updates, new funding announcements and other important campus related issues.

RESTORE Act Website Now Available

The Office of Proposal Development has created a site to provide information about RESTORE Act funding. Funding will be available for areas such as sustainability, economic development, planning and restoration. This new site, along with other funding opportunity resources, can be found at http://research.fsu.edu/research-offices/opd/funding-opportunities/.

Open Access, Open Data, and Data Management

On Feb. 22, 2013, the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a policy memorandum titled “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research”. The intent of the policy is to ensure that results of federally funded research are made available to the public. The OSTP policy requires each federal agency with more than $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the federal government. Since that time, most federal agencies have implemented public access policies and are now including their requirements in awards.

The Office of Research Compliance Programs has updated its website on data management to provide easy access to these policies, as well as links to FSU’s resources, to assist investigators in complying with award terms and conditions. The Open Access, Open Data, and Data Management web page is available here. Please contact Diana Key at dkey@fsu.edu or 644-8648 if you have any questions about these requirements.

Stay Up to Date with FSU Research News

Did you hear about the work Tim Cross is doing at the MagLab to help figure out the flu virus? What about Jose Mendoza-Cortes’ progress in creating an artificial material that can mimic photosynthesis? These and many, many more stories await you at http://news.fsu.edu/, the main source of news at FSU.

And if you are on Twitter, why not jump on and follow @FSUResearch while you are at it? There’s lots of great research-related information being shared daily to help keep you in the know.

NSF Just-in-Time Budget Pilot

In FY16, the DMS Infrastructure Program is participating in a pilot program that employs a streamlined initial budget process for proposals. The intent of this pilot is to allow NSF program staff and reviewers to focus on the science and to reduce the investigators’ administrative workload by requiring only a basic justification of the resources necessary to complete the project. If a proposal is recommended for award, NSF staff will request full budgets and budget justifications and will proceed as normally with the recommendation process. To learn more about this pilot, visit http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=136883&WT.mc_id=USNSF_61&WT.mc_ev=click.

IDEA Grants

FSU undergraduate students in all majors can apply for an FSU IDEA Grant (formerly URCAA, MRCE PRSF). Selected applicants will receive a summer stipend of up to $4,000 (or up to $6,000 for groups or $5,000 for the ACC IDEA Grant) to fund their self-designed work on a topic, project, problem, artistic product or performance, or other entrepreneurial or creative idea. Projects must last 8-12 weeks and be under the mentorship of a supervising professor. IDEA Grant applications are due Jan. 28, 2016. For more information and to apply: http://cre.fsu.edu/Students/IDEA-Grants

Certified Research Administrator (CRA) Review Session

The designation of Certified Research Administrator (CRA) indicates that an individual has met the requirements of the Research Administrators Certification Council's eligibility requirements and has demonstrated a level of knowledge necessary to become a professional research or sponsored programs administrator. Candidates applying to sit for the CRA Exam must meet one of the following requirements:

A bachelor’s degree and three years of professional experience in research or sponsored programs administration; or
An associate’s degree and five years of professional experience in research or sponsored programs administration.

The testing fee is $375.

Sponsored Research Administration (SRA) is organizing a review session for the Certified Research Administrator Exam in May 2016. The review session will be hosted by Florida State University in January and will provide an overview of the body of knowledge in preparation for the exam. The cost of the review session will be $225 per person.

If interested in obtaining your CRA credentials and participating in the body of knowledge overview, please contact Helen McCann as soon as possible at hmccann@fsu.edu or 850-644-8947.

Date	Course Code and Name	Location/Time
12/03/2015	SRA04 Hands on Budget	UCA 1203 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
12/09/2015	SRA26 Subcontracting / Audit Requirements	Student Services Building, 301 8:30 a.m. -10:30 a.m.
12/15/2015	SRA11 Award Negotiations & Processing / Federal Acquisition Regulation Clauses	Strozier Library 005A 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
12/17/2015	SRA14 National Science Foundation	UCA 1203 8:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.

Revised NSF Terms and Conditions

Revised versions of the NSF Grant General Conditions (GC-1) (Summary of Significant Changes to the GC-1) and Cooperative Agreement Financial and Administrative Terms and Conditions (CA-FATC) (Summary of Significant Changes to the CA-FATC) have been issued. The revisions to the terms and conditions parallel recent changes made to the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide, such as public access, dual use research of concern, updates regarding animal welfare and a revised timeframe for submitting project reports.

The revised GC-1 will apply to new NSF grants and funding amendments to existing NSF grants issued on or after Jan. 25, 2016, and similarly, the CA-FATC will apply to NSF cooperative agreements. Parallel changes will be made to the remaining suite of NSF terms and conditions.

If you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact the DIAS/Policy Office on (703) 292-8243 or by email to policy@nsf.gov.

Revised Version of NSF Grants Application Guide

A revised version of the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide has been posted to the NSF website and is available electronically at: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=grantsgovguide0116&org=NSF.

This document is applicable to all applications submitted or due to NSF on or after Jan. 25, 2016. Please refer to page 2 of the guide for a summary of the significant changes, clarifications and other changes. Any questions regarding the new guide should be submitted electronically to policy@nsf.gov.

5 Things You Would Never Expect Need an Export License

Obviously you’d expect military equipment to be export restricted.

The same thing goes for aerospace and defense items in general – it makes sense that the government would want to prevent hostile entities from obtaining guns, engines, and so on. But there are also a host of restricted items that you’d probably never imagine would be export restricted. Here’s a quick run-down of a few of the most surprising.

1. Sony PlayStation

As good as they are for your hand-eye coordination, video games have long been an export control issue. In 1999, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) ruled that it was illegal to ship the PlayStation2 console to China without an export license. Though assembled in Japan, the PS2’s powerful processor chip was manufactured in the United States, making it controlled technology prohibited from ending up in the hands of nationals from export-restricted countries like China. In 2010, freight forwarders in Miami were arrested and criminally charged with violating export laws for shipping products, including several PlayStation3 consoles, to a company in Paraguay appearing on a Restricted Parties List provided by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The documentation for some PlayStation software even requires users to agree not to export or re-export it to any embargoed persons or places. Make sure you play safe!

2. Life Jackets

They’re meant to save lives, but according to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), life jackets are potentially dangerous objects that can’t be taken outside the United States without an export license. Since life jackets have military applications as well as civilian ones, they qualify as “dual use goods,” and it’s illegal to let them be transferred to any restricted parties. As strange as it may sound, there’s enough of a risk that life jackets can be used to harm the foreign policy interests of the U.S. that they need to be meticulously controlled.

3. Western Red Cedar

Because of its light weight and its straight grain, timber from the western red cedar tree is highly sought after; it’s used for outdoor construction, sailboats and kayaks, and guitar soundboards, among many others. Nevertheless, under United States export law it’s illegal to ship western red cedar wood across the border that were harvested from any federal or state lands. There are certain exceptions – for instance, wood from Alaska or from lands held in trust for recognized Indian tribes – but in general, Uncle Sam is really serious about making sure the western red cedar stays inside of America.

4. Paraffin Wax

It’s used in everything from candles to crayons to chewing gum – but it’s also a petroleum product (export restricted), not to mention an essential ingredient in the formulation of certain types of rocket fuel (very export restricted) and even weaponry and explosives like dynamite and antipersonnel mines (very, very export restricted). As a “phlegmatizing agent” (which sounds gross, but really just means that it dilutes a substance to make it less dangerous to handle), paraffin wax has to be kept away from restricted parties and sanctioned countries.

5. A Horse

It’s illegal to transport a horse from the United States to any destination (including Canada, the Code of Federal Regulations is careful to point out) without an export license. More (and strangely) specifically, a license is required for the export of horses by sea. According to regulations, license applications will be approved if the BIS and Department of Agriculture determine that the horses are not intended for slaughter; evidently, exporting a horse by plane, train, or automobile does not hold the same risk of slaughter as sea travel. The regulations do not elaborate on why this might be. Maybe pirates? Or a bizarre typo – perhaps the regulation was meant to restrict the export of seahorses? In any case, before you put your horse on a boat, make sure you get a license.

And those are only five of the thousands of items on the U.S. government’s Commerce Control List. How sure are you that your seemingly innocuous products don’t need an export license.

¹From The Export Compliance Journal. (December 6, 2013). Reprinted with permission.

New On-line Compliance Training from CITI

Research activities conducted by faculty, staff and students at Florida State University must be conducted in an ethical and responsible manner following applicable federal or other governmental requirements, sponsor requirements, and university policies and procedures. The Office of Research subscribes to the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program) offered by the University of Miami. CITI’s web-based training materials serve millions of learners at academic institutions, government agencies and commercial organizations in the U.S. and around the world. The Responsible Conduct of Research course has been available for a few years. Two additional courses have been added recently: Conflict of Interest and Export Controls. The Office of Research Compliance Programs (ORCP) encourages all faculty, staff, and students involved in research to take these courses. Contact the Director of ORCP, Diana Key, if you have questions.

NIH Announces Revised Grants Policy Statement & Application Guide

NIH has announced it has published a revised grants policy statement as well as revised SF424 application guides and instructions. See the links below for more details.

Revised SF424 (R&R) application guides and supplemental instructions available for application due dates on and between Jan. 25, 2016 and May 24, 2016
(NOT-OD-16-029)
Publication of the revised NIH grants policy statement (Rev. 11/2015) for FY 2016
(NOT-OD-16-030)

Research Computing Center Highlighted in FSU News

A behind-the-scenes hero for many researchers, the Research Computing Center is featured in two FSU news stories on new research. The first is on Bin Chen, whose new paper in Scientific Reports, looks at Einstein’s theory of relativity. The second story is on Jose Mendoza-Cortes’ work on a new material that mimics photosynthesis.

New Face in the Office of Research

A new team member has recently joined the Office of Research family. Say hello to Walter Lee, a new subcontract analyst in Sponsored Research Administration who will be responsible for post award administrative and financial support services on subcontracts. Prior to joining SRA, Walter worked at FSU as an accounting associate for UBA – Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Science.