June 2015 Newsletter

Research Award Opportunities for New Faculty

The Searle Scholars Program, Sloan Research Fellowships, Cottrell Scholars Award, Beckman Young Investigators Award are programs for assistant professors, largely focused on STEM areas. The awards carry significant national recognition and new faculty are highly encouraged to apply. Below are brief synopses of each award in terms of eligibility, guidelines and deadlines. You can find a more inclusive list of awards for new faculty on the Office of Proposal Development’s site. The awards below are listed by due date. Please note that each of these awards is recurrent, with the same opportunity and similar deadlines opening up again next year.

Cottrell Scholars Award: This program seeks to develop outstanding scholar-educators. Eligible applicants are tenure-track faculty members whose primary appointment is in a department of astronomy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, or physics, but not in a school of medicine or engineering. Eligibility is limited to faculty in the third year after their first tenure-track appointment. Awards total $75,000 for three years. The deadline for the pre-proposal is May 15.

Sloan Research Fellowships: These fellowships support fundamental research by early-career faculty in chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics. Candidates should be no more than six years from completion of their most recent Ph.D. at of the year of their nomination. The size of the award is $50,000 for the two-year period. Candidates must be nominated by a department head or other senior researcher (they can be from outside of FSU) and the nominations must be uploaded through Interfolio.com. Departments are limited to one nomination per cycle. The portal for nominations opens over the summer, and all materials (including the candidate’s C.V., a one-page statement, two articles, and three letters of support) must be uploaded by September 15^th.

Beckman Young Investigators Award: This award funds researchers in chemistry, engineering, and the life sciences, with a special interest in proposals that foster the invention of methods, instruments and materials. To be eligible, an applicant should not have completed more than three full years in his or her tenure-track or other comparable independent research appointment. Grants may be in the range of $750,000 for up to four years. To apply, applicants must submit a letter of intent (not more than 800 words describing the project), biosketch and research support form by Sept. 3. Individuals are invited to apply no more than two times and preference is given to researchers without funding from other sources.

Searle Scholars Program: This program awards $100,00 per year for three years of support to researchers pursuing careers in biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and related areas in chemistry, medicine, and the biological sciences. Candidates should have begun their first appointment as an independent investigator at the assistant professor level on or after July 1 of the year prior to the application year. There are generally 15 awards made per year, with the application portal opening in September of each year.

Posting of a "for comment" draft of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide

The NSF has published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the availability of a “for comment” draft of the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG). The Foundation is accepting comments from the external community until close of business July 20, 2015.

To facilitate review, revised text has been highlighted in yellow throughout the document and explanatory comments have been included in the margins, where appropriate.

The following are links to the draft PAPPG and associated Federal Register Notice:

Any questions should be directed to the DIAS/Policy Office at policy@nsf.gov.

Federal Lobbying Activities Report is Due July 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 April-June 2015 should be submitted to the Office of Federal Relations no later than July 5, 2015. To access the form and additional information, please visit the Federal Relations website.

Build a “Boat” for Whatever Floats Your Boat Regatta

Summer is a great time to build a vessel for the 4^th Annual Whatever Floats Your Boat Regatta at the Florida State University Coastal & Marine Laboratory. Challenge friends, family, and colleagues to build boats out of stuff that any normal person would take to the dump. Just build ‘em and they will float… more or less. Gather recycled materials and get started! For more information and to register, visit: http://marinelab.fsu.edu/outreach/regatta/.

Landlubbers will be busy ashore cheering on the captains and crews of these outrageously constructed vessels as they sail, row, or scull around the course, topple over, or slowly sink into Apalachee Bay. Enjoy good food, have loads of fun, all while learning about recycling and how to reduce the impact of plastics on marine environments.

Join us on Saturday, October 3^rd from 12pm-3pm for a day of racing fun.

Research Photos, Videos, Story Opportunities Needed

Do you take pictures of your research? Capture videos of experiments, creative endeavors, etc.? Do you blog? Do you have a paper ready to be published or a new grant you just received? If any of these even remotely apply, we want to hear from you!

Whether it’s @FSUResearch, the FSU research blog, the FSU news website, or news releases in general, we have a variety of ways to promote your research. But we need your help in getting the content so we can communicate it to the masses.

Please contact Tom Butler (tbutler@fsu.edu) and Kathleen Haughney (khaughney@fsu.edu) with any photos, videos or news opportunities you would like to send along.

Council on Research and Creativity Updates

On May 7, the FSU Council on Research and Creativity (CRC) held its grants workshop for the 2014 – 2015 First Year Assistant Professors. The morning session was a ‘mini-CReATE workshop’ facilitated by the Office of Research, Sponsored Research and FSU Research Foundation representatives. The afternoon featured breakout sessions lead by successfully funded faculty within specific academic fields.

During the lunch break, recipients of the 2013 – 2014 FYAP award presented posters displaying the results of their first summer at FSU and its impact on their planned research. The CRC chose to recognize the top three posters for ‘best in show’ and prizes were awarded to the following:

Luke Boosey, Economics
Arielle Borovsky, Psychology
Angela Knapp, Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Science

All posters will be viewable at http://www.research.fsu.edu/crc/workshops.html

Date	Course Code and Name	Location/Time
6/10/2015	SRA06 Hot Issues in Research - Sub recipient Monitoring	Training Center, 2:30-4:30
6/12/2015	SRA08 Finding Funding for your Project	Student Services Building, 301, 10:00-12:00
6/17/2015	SRA09 Effort Commitments/ Certifications	Student Services Building, 301, 8:30-10:30
6/25/2015	SRA04 Hands On Budget	UCA-1203, 2:30-4:30

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program

The faculty portal is now open for FSU's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). UROP is a year-long program in which high-achieving first- and second-year students, as well as some transfer and veteran students, serve as research assistants with faculty members working on research or creative projects. The faculty interview and select admitted UROP students for their projects and direct their work during the year. All UROP students attend a year-long research colloquium and present their work at the annual FSU Undergraduate Research Symposium.

As UROP Research Sponsors, faculty members, postdocs, and graduate students can have student research assistants at no cost to them. Faculty can also receive a materials grant for up to $500 and be eligible for a $2,000 Undergraduate Research Mentor award. We encourage you to upload a project for which you would like research assistants (and view previous UROP projects) through the UROP site. For more information on UROP, contact Dr. Joe O'Shea at joshea@fsu.edu.

NSF FastLane Compliance Checks

Beginning April 24, 2015, proposals submitted in response to Program Solicitations in FastLane will undergo a series of automated proposal compliance validation checks to ensure they comply with requirements outlined in the Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (Chapter II.C.2. of the Grants Proposal Guide). These checks will automatically validate a proposal for compliance against proposal sections per type of funding mechanism. For example, an error message will appear if a project description or budget is not provided in proposals submitted in response to a Program Solicitation.

Checks will be triggered when proposers select the “Check Proposal,” “Forward to SPO,” or “Submit Proposal” functions. Depending on the rule being checked, a warning or error message will display when a proposal is found to be non-compliant. If an error message appears, the proposal cannot be submitted until it is compliant.

Please note that these automated compliance checks will not be conducted on proposals submitted to NSF via Grants.gov.

To view a detailed list of all compliance checks, click here.

We encourage you to share this information within your respective organization. Please direct any questions to the Policy Office in the Division of Institution & Award Support at policy@nsf.gov, or (703) 292-8243.

NIH Warns of 'Serious Consequences' of Application Non-Compliance

A notice issued by NIH on April 15 warned grant hopefuls of serious consequences for submitting applications with errors. "The purpose of this notice is to remind applicants, both investigators and grants office officials, that to be fair to all concerned the NIH needs to consistently apply standards for application compliance. Be mindful that non-compliance can have serious consequences. NIH may withdraw any application identified during the receipt, referral and review process that is not compliant with the instructions" in NIH's application guide, "Funding Opportunity Announcement, and relevant NIH Guide Notices," the announcement said. NIH gave examples of non-compliance, which included improperly completed biosketches. "Applications submitted as new but containing elements of a resubmission or renewal application are noncompliant with the resubmission policy," NIH said, in describing another example. Visit the NIH website for more information.

Advance Funding Opportunity

The Florida Department of Health anticipates issuing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) on or around May 1, 2015 for the James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program and the Bankhead Coley Cancer Research Program. For this FOA, the Department is interested in funding research proposals in the following research priorities: Prevention and treatment, screening, health disparities, tobacco use, obesity and treatment-related morbidities. Visit the Department of Health for more information.

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.

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. May's awards report will be available shortly. Learn more, and access this report at the Research Awards page.

Jeffrey A. Gabor Superior Accomplishment Award Winner

Congratulations to Mike Repchak, IT Manager for the Office of the Vice President for Research, on his recent Jeffrey A. Gabor Superior Accomplishment award. The Gabor Awards are given to individuals who achieve superior accomplishments during the previous twelve-month period that resulted in or contributed to FSU’s efficiency and/or effectiveness.

Mike was one of five winners this past year for his work to improve the technical capabilities of Sponsored Research Administration. These improvements include equipment and software upgrades that have helped increase office communication, organization and customer service.

Congratulations Mike!

Award Memorializes Jim Brooks

The Graduate School has created the Dr. James S. “Jim” Brooks Graduate Student Award in Materials Science and Engineering to memorialize the late Physics Department chair who passed away last September. The purpose of the award is to encourage academically motivated graduate students to seek opportunities within this field of study at Florida State University. To learn more about the award, including how you can contribute, visit its website.