Lori Kaser: I’d like to provide an overview of the GDSU. We are a first come first serve service. We provide proposal development resources and run the SEEDS program. To talk about SEEDS a little bit, it is an internal faculty competition. We have a SEEDS Early Career competition for people who have not reached tenure-stage yet or have less than six years experience.
We have a SEEDS Team competition, which is two or more faculty members working together and a SEEDS Team Partnership Grant, which is an option to work with a commodity group or industry partner who brings a match.
The Partnership Grant has two deadlines per year. The next deadline is March 8.
After this meeting, Melissa will send out the SEEDS RFP.
Overall, we get about $1 million a year. We fund about 10 Early Career Grants with $50k a piece, a few for Partnership and some for student competitions.
Pam Schlegel: A good resource for finding funding is Lori’s monthly research newsletter. It includes the newest competitions that are out there, but the number one is the Spin Database which links into grants.gov etc.
Lori: On the sponsor websites, all federal sponsors list their solicitations on grants.gov. Just because we work with USDA-NIFA so much, if you go to NIFA grants it will bring up a whole list of RFPs available through NIFA.
Pam: Unsolicited vs solicited solicitations.
Solicited: submitted in response to a certain thing that the sponsor is looking for.
Unsolicited: submit work / ask if what you’re doing works for a sponsor.
You found your solicitation… within that there will be an RFP or a PA with everything you will need to address or have ready to go. Primarily your research narrative and budget.
We have budget templates, but the approval doesn’t come from the GDSU, it comes from your Sponsored Program Officer (SPO). We can provide budget justification templates, conflict of interest templates, etc.
The SPO hits the submit button, but we can put all that information in there for you. Our whole goal is to provide you time to work on your narrative, because the research portion is the most important. If we have time, we can do some editing and proofreading as well…
We also work a lot with other universities to get sub-award documentation. That frees you up to work on the narrative.
Lori: Please reach out to us when you have questions. It may be a simple question, or you may need help with everything… We will talk you though it and we know that you are new. We are here to help! We want to help make the process not so intimidating.
Question: What is the sponsored program officer? Who is that?
Pam: That is the person you have to go to to let them know you are submitting a particular proposal, and they give you approval on the budget you come up with. They work with us to get that budget approved. Typically you and I are not able to hit the submit button for the proposal.
Lori: It’s through the Office of Research at the University-level, and within that office is the Office of Sponsored Programs with Sponsored Program Officers. Each department has an assigned SPO.
The Office of Sponsored Programs does not provide editing. They are reviewers of budgets and can submit the proposal for you. They make sure all of the boxes are checked, etc. but they are not writers and editors.
Question: How long does the process take with the Office of Sponsored Programs?
Pam: Ultimately give yourself as much time as possible. Usually with in six weeks time that you are planning on submitting a proposal, then we can start pulling all the info together. We can do it quicker, but again, we only have as much time as we are allotted
Lori: SPO will want at least two days before you’re planning to submit, because in our college, several people may be submitting to the same grant at the same time.
Pam: We also do faculty development with D.C. Days and First Mondays.
D.C. days is a competitive program, and it’s an opportunity to meet with federal program officers face to face. We usually take people in April or May, this year it will be the third week of May.
Summer: It’s very helpful… We went to USDA, NSF and NIH… We talked with Program Officers and Directors. I was also on an NSF panel and learned a lot from that. Great networking opportunity.
Pam: The different agencies we go to depends on who applies. Typically we go to USDA. We usually fly in on a Sunday and leave on a Wednesday. It’s just a good time to get together with other FAES people.
Typically, D.C. Days will have an RFP in October and we have a letter out in December. So look for that next year.
We also provide faculty and staff training workshops and other opportunities.
Lori: We will have a 2017 training schedule coming out soon.
We also provide research compliance administrative approvals. We follow up on the financial conflict of interest forms that you need to file at least once a year. We also handle the responsible conduct of research training for the college.
ePA-005 approvals – our office approves those forms.
Terry Snoddy:
Federal Capacity Funds (USDA-NIFA)
Susan Dimit helps in the USDA REEport system.
Shawn Adams does financial reporting
Angie LeMaster helps out with Extension
Capacity funds.
What are these?
A competitive grant – you apply for the funds.
Capacity funds are legislative. We get the funds and we create the projects to spend the dollars.
Base funds and other sources: Hard and soft dollars
Hard dollars are funds we typically count on each year and soft dollars are more cyclical.
Base funds: how we fund salaries, benefits, etc.
Research has four programs: Hatch, Hatch Multi-State, McIntire Stennis (forestry research), Animal Health
Extension has three: Smith Lever, EFNEP, RREA
How are they used?
In research capacity funds: 100% allocated to faculty salary and benefits
Extension: Smith Lever 100% allocated to salary and benefits for faculty and staff across Extension
To spend these funds, we have to have an active research project in one of the categories above. You can have your own project or be a co-PI. For new faculty, we give you a grace period of one year, but if you have a research appointment you should have a Hatch project.
REEport is the USDA project administration. Once the project is active we can pay some of your salary with these funds. These are very general. Many faculty try to fit it in with their overall research focus.
Dr. Dave Benfield is the administrative lead. He reads all the reports that come in.
Extension is a little easier in that they don’t have project level requirements for Smith Lever. Likely, part of your appointment is paid in Smith Lever funds if you have a faculty appointment in Extension.
Lori: Any further questions?
Question: Are Post Docs allowed to apply to the SEEDS program?
Lori: If you have PI status at the university as a Post Doc. PI status is granted by the Office of Research. There is a procedure… The CV goes to the Department Chair, then that goes to the VP of Research and Grad Education for the college, and then goes to Office of Research.
Question: Is $50k the max you can get from SEEDS?
Lori: Yes. The whole idea for SEEDS is to get the initial research data so you can apply for bigger and better funding sources. It is meant to be one or two years of funding so you can collect data and move forward with bigger proposals.
Question: Can you have SEEDS Early Career collaborators that are not early career?
Lori: Yes, but they cannot be lead PI or co-PI and they will not get any of the budget money. But they can be collaborators.
Question: If we have an industry grant that we are writing, can we retroactively apply for the match for the grant?
Lori: Yes, but it has to be within the same fiscal year.
Question: ePA005, there are a lot of questions about invertebrate animals and IACUC?
Lori: Some of the protocol information, does it need to be in place before you submit the proposal? No. Office of Research understands that once you know you get funded you’ll initiate your protocol. It’s a lot to do upfront to not get funded.