Topic: Research Protection Policy- Science Security- Foreign Influence

On July 11, 2019, NSF released a Dear Colleague Letter on Research Protection (nsf19200). The letter addressed NSF’s commitment to “maintaining a vibrant and diverse research community,” while also addressing increasing concerns over risks to the U.S. science and engineering enterprise.

Relevance for CSU:

To address growing concerns, Provost Rick Miranda and Vice President for Research Alan Rudolph sent an email on “Mitigating risks to the research enterprise” to the CSU community. Since then, a set of resources has been added to the OVPR website on the Resources for International Collaborations page.

In accordance with federal regulations, CSU faculty and researchers should ensure their Conflict of Interest (COI) disclosure is up-to-date in the new Kuali COI module. COI includes financial and non-financial relationships/activities outside CSU. Additionally, investigators applying for federal awards should disclose all other current and pending support. “Other support” may include resources and/or financial support, domestic and foreign, in support of a researcher’s endeavors. This includes participation in foreign talent programs.

Topic: PAPPG Implementation & Significant Changes for 2020

Proposed changes to Biographical Sketch and Current & Pending

Upon implementation of the 2020 NSF Proposal and Awards Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG), NSF will only accept PDFs for the biographical sketch and current and pending forms generated through the use of an NSF-approved format. NSF will be using SciENcv as the NSF-approved format for the biographical sketch and will be collaborating with NIH to develop a template for current and pending support information.

Relevance for CSU:

CSU investigators should use SciENcv to create biographical sketches for NSF. Information in SciENcv can also be used to generate biographical sketches for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences (IES) applications.

Additional Topics: NSF Policy FAQs

In April 2018, NSF began accepting full research non-collaborative proposals via Research.gov. In June 2019, full research collaborative proposals with subawards were accepted through Research.gov. Look for Research.gov to accept full research collaborative proposals from multiple organizations in 2020.

RAPID and EAGER proposals require advance documentation on consultation with an NSF program officer. Applications for these programs will require an upload showing proof of that consultation and approval (e.g. email document from the NSF Program Officer).

Investigators can include costs for data deposit and data curation under “Other Direct Costs/Publication/Documentation/Dissemination.”

As a general policy, NSF limits requests for salary compensation for senior personnel to no more than two months of their regular salary in any one year. If a postdoctoral fellow is listed as senior personnel (e.g. Co-PI) and is committing 100% of their effort to the project, the 2-month rule applies.

Participant support costs are defined by NSF as “direct costs such as stipends or subsistence allowances, travel allowances and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with NSF-sponsored conferences or training projects.” (See Participant Support Costs Explained, NSF Proposal and Award Policy Newsletter, Issue II, May/June 2017, p 4.). If the primary purpose of support is for training, then budget as participant support costs. If the primary purpose is for presenting an oral or poster presentation, then costs should be listed under “Other Direct Costs.”

If multiple campuses in a University system all use the same DUNS number, they cannot act as separate campuses for the purposes of limited submission programs. Each campus must have different DUNS numbers in order to be considered a separate organization.

If a proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus, the proposal must address the benefit(s) to the project in performing activities at the international branch campus and must justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the U.S. campus.