Office of Sponsored Programs

The January 26, 2012, RACM meeting handouts are posted on the OSP website at http://www.research.vcu.edu/osp/training.htm.  Handout material from previous meetings is also available.

For the summer of 2012, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) will fund a limited number of undergraduate student fellowship awards for projects mentored by VCU faculty. Successful student applicants will receive a cash stipend of $3,000. Applicants must submit both a hard copy and electronic copy to the dean's office of their academic major by the new deadline of March 1 for review. For details, visit http://www.research.vcu.edu/vpr/ugresources/fellowship-instructions.htm. 

NIH has issued their guidance on salary cap implementation.  The official Notice, NOT-OD-12-035, is available here:  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-12-035.html

Essentially, they have made it as simple as possible to implement the new requirements.  However, there will be monitoring and oversight requirements to ensure that implementation is properly handled.   The initial Issue Date of the FY2012 portion of your award will be the determinant of which salary cap is applied.  In summary:

FY2012 Initial Award Date of 10/1/2011 - 12/22/2011 - Salary Cap is Executive Level I or $199,700 and remains $199,700 until FY2013 funds are awarded
 
FY2012 Initial Award Date of 12/23/2011 and beyond - Salary Cap is Executive Level II or $179,700

VCU has 12 FY2012 awards that will continue to operate at the $199,700 cap.  Sue Robb will be in touch with each of the fiscal administrators for those grants to confirm.   

FY2011 awards also continue to use the $199,700 cap.  FY2011 funds carried forward into FY2012 award periods also remain at the $199,700 rate.  The $179,700 rate kicks in when expenditure of FY2012 funds awarded on or after 12/23/2011 begins.

Non-competing awards of FY2012 funds will not be recalculated to adjust for the decrease in the salary limitation prior to award and departments can rebudget any funds freed as a result of the lower cap.   

Competing awards with an issue date of December 23  and beyond with categorical budgets reflecting salary levels at or above the new limit will reflect adjustments to the current and all future years so that no funds are awarded or committed for salaries over the limitation.

Attending this week's RACM meeting (Thursday, January 26, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. in Larrick Hall)It is strongly recommended.  Examples of how to apply the new cap will be demonstrated and discussed.   

The American Cancer Society has awarded an Institutional Research Grant to Virginia Commonwealth University, Massey Cancer Center. Grant applications are now being invited from junior faculty for the award of small research grants of up to $30,000 for one year to perform basic, pre-clinical, clinical and cancer-control research studies (including but not limited to health services, psychosocial/behavioral, epidemiologic and health policy/outcome cancer research). These grants are intended for new investigators (within six years of first independent academic appointment) who do not have an active, nationally competitive research grant (e.g., from NIH, NSF, ACS).

Deadline for Submission is February 20, 2012.

Application instructions and forms are available at http://www.massey.vcu.edu/acs-institutional-research-grants.htm

The final passage of H.R. 2055 on December 23, 2011 reduced the NIH salary cap from Executive Level I ($199,700) to Executive Level II ($179,700).   NIH is currently finalizing guidance on its implementation of the new cap and is expected to release it sometime this week.

There is the expectation that NIH is going to require the new cap for all FY2012 funds awarded on or after December 24, 2011;  however, this cannot be verified until NIH's guidance is released.   

All new proposals must use the $179,700 cap.  The new cap has been entered into the VCUeRA system so all proposals prepared in the system will comply.   

Detailed implementation information will be distributed after NIH guidance has been received and evaluated.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) invites undergraduate students from every discipline to showcase their work in a poster demonstration or creative research presentation for Research Week 2012. Presentations may be for completed research projects, completed papers or research in progress. Poster abstracts must be submitted no later than March 10.  Abstracts should include student's name and major, mentor's name and academic department.  For more information, visit http://www.research.vcu.edu/vpr/ugresources/symposium_flyer_2012.pdf.

For the summer of 2012, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) will fund a limited number of undergraduate student fellowship awards for projects mentored by VCU faculty. Successful student applicants will receive a cash stipend of $3,000. Applicants must submit both a hard copy and electronic copy no later than Feb. 1 for review.

For details, visit http://www.research.vcu.edu/vpr/ugresources/fellowship-instructions.htm.

NIH Notice: NOT-HS-12-003

Released: December 15, 2011

This Notice suspends the submission of individual career development grant applications (K01, K02, and K08) for AHRQ Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA's) for the February 12, 2012 application receipt date for new applications and March 12, 2012 receipt date for re-submission applications.  These FOA's include:
   

PAR-09-085 Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (K08) (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-09-085.html)

PAR-09-086 Independent Scientist Award (K02) (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-09-086.html)

PAR-09-087 Mentored Research Scientist Research Career Development Award (K01) (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-09-087.html)

The winter meeting of the Society of Research Administrators (SRA) - Virginia Chapter will be held January 20, 2012, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.  The meeting will take place at the Webb University Center on the ODU Campus.     

The meeting is scheduled for Friday January 20, 2012, from 7:30 a.m. to 3:35 p.m., with an optional NASA Langley Research Center tour scheduled for Thursday, January 19, 2012.  Full meeting agenda, registration, and other related information is available at:

http://www.srainternational.org/sra03/template/tntbVAcM12.cfm?id=4796

The last three SRA Virginia Chapter meetings were hosted by VCU in January 2009, by UVA in January 2010, and by GMU in January 2011.

The Biomedical Informatics Core within the VCU Center for Clinical and Translational Research presents a Biomedical Informatics Retreat on Thursday, December 8. This half-day retreat will provide useful information for researchers about data resources, management and technologies available at VCU.

Topics include:

-Pathways to move from an idea for research to completion of the project
-Clinical trials management system (OnCore) overview
-Data resources available for research
-VCU Health System information systems
-High throughput sequencing capacity at VCU
-Sequencing/Microarray data to analysis
-High capacity computing capabilities
-Personalized medicine (e.g. family history and genotype)
-Simple cohort identification (i2b2) and electronic data capture (REDCap)

The retreat will be held in the Larrick Center on the MCV Campus, Court End Ballroom, from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and is free and open to all interested VCU researchers, faculty and students.

Lunch will be provided. Registration is required. An online registration form is available at http://www.cctr.vcu.edu or email cctradmin@vcu.edu for more information.