News and Policy Updates

10/2/2019

DOE’s 17 laboratories provide a unique opportunity for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce development. The national laboratory system offers access to leading scientists; world-class scientific user facilities and instrumentation; and large-scale, multidisciplinary research programs unavailable in universities or industry.

Click here for details. 

Please be advised that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has designated the National Institutes of Health’s SciENcv (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae) as an NSF-approved format for submission of the biographical sketch(es) and is encouraging its use to prepare a biographical sketch for inclusion in proposals to NSF.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and fifteen other Federal Departments and Agencies have issued final revisions to the Common Rule, which is the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects. The changes will go into effect on January 21, 2019. 

Summary of Major Changes to the Common Rule

Limited Submissions are funding opportunities in which the sponsor only allows a specific and limited number of proposals from a given institution. QCC approves the policy for the limited submission process. The effective date is February 15, 2019. Details please see here.

Click here for details.

(January 31, 2019)

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a memorandum with the Status of Agency Operations. Several agencies have proposed contingency plans that might affect your grant applications or award management. 

• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Environmental protection Agency (EPA)
• NASA

Community College Research Grant program supports the collaborative pedagogical research efforts of CUNY community college faculty. The program seeks to leverage faculty expertise to promote student success. The primary goal is to seed research that will lead to externally funded grant proposals and scholarly publications.

Pedagogical research focuses on the teaching and learning process. This research is often most useful when it assesses current teaching methods and techniques, seeks to uncover the ways in which students learn, and validates good practices.

All proposals must be structured to reflect the engagement of at least two investigators (see eligibility rules below).  In addition, faculty members are encouraged to provide opportunities for CUNY undergraduate students to participate in their research activities.

In 2019, we anticipate awarding 4-5 Collaborative Pedagogical Research grants with budgets not exceeding $15,000. Three awards were made last year and the abstracts are posted at https://bit.ly/2BBpq0U

Click here for details. 

1. Book Completion Award

The CUNY Office of Research invites proposals from faculty who are working on research or creative projects they are developing into publishable book manuscripts.  Funds will be awarded on a competitive basis to faculty in the arts, humanities and social sciences to develop or complete a book manuscript for publication. This grant program welcomes applications from faculty for book projects that are in the development and prospectus stage, as well as for manuscripts that have been accepted for publication and are nearing the completion and submission stage.

Submission deadline is March 1, 2019

More information including complete guidelines can be found here:

http://www2.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources/internal-funding/book-completion/

2. Urban Innovations Interdisciplinary Research Grant

Urban societies across the globe are confronting numerous challenges related to the environment, human health, technology, infrastructure, and the ever-changing modes of social organization. Addressing these complex scientific and societal challenges requires problem-solving approaches that transcend individual disciplines and integrate a diverse range of skill sets and expertise. As the largest urban public university in the United States, CUNY boasts a highly diverse faculty with the requisite knowledge and competencies to address these urban challenges.

The Interdisciplinary Research Grant 2019/2020 program seeks to support and encourage faculty researchers who will tackle challenges or problems that affect the needs of urban populations and the urban environment. We encourage applications that address specific challenges in ways that can be approached by combining expertise across disciplines (such as the health/social sciences, natural sciences and humanities).

The goal of this program is to provide seed funding for projects that will become eligible and competitive for external funding.

Over the last three years, 21 grants were awarded to 52 CUNY faculty. In the last cycle of this competition, we funded 6 proposals. Details can be found at: https://bit.ly/2qMlXGJ

We anticipate that there will be approximately five to eight one-year awards of $40,000 made in 2019.

Submission deadline is March 8, 2019

More information including complete guidelines can be found here:

http://www2.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources/internal-funding/interdisciplinary-research-grant-program/

Download the Oversight Graph PDF opens in a new window

The first CUNY International Research and Education Forum will be held on November 8^th at The Graduate Center. The forum brings together CUNY scientists interested in international research, calling for collaborations beyond the lines of disciplines and nationalities. It provides an opportunity to both showcase world-class research and education at CUNY and to develop and improve existing models of international collaboration. The forum offers a unique opportunity for researchers, faculty, and graduate/doctoral students to dialogue with and to develop professional relationships with foreign research administrators, ultimately leading to foreign collaborations with great scientific advances.

RSVP

2017 OMB Compliance Supplement

Dear Principal Investigators and Project Directors,
The Research Foundation’s Board of Directors has amended the Time and Leave policy 506-G Time and Leave Benefits for All Research Foundation Employees (employee, PI, or GO login required). The policy has been amended to clarify the overall sick leave benefits offered by the Research Foundation and to expand on New York City Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA) provisions.
Here is what you need to know regarding the changes:

• The New York City Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA) requires employers to provide employees with a minimum of 40 sick leave hours during a calendar year. The sick leave can be used for the care of the employee or a family member.
• To be in compliance with the New York City Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA), the first 40 hours of sick leave used by a RFCUNY employee (for any purpose) is designated as ESTA Leave.
• However, RFCUNY provides sick leave benefits beyond ESTA leave. Under RFCUNY’s time and leave policy, employees can take up to 40 hours of sick leave in a calendar year for the care of a family member, whether it is the first 40 or the last 40 hours of their accrued sick leave. A family member is defined as:
  •  Child
  •  Grandchild
  •  Spouse
  •  Domestic partner
  •  Parent
  •  Grandparent
  •  Child or parent of an employee’s spouse or domestic partner
  •  Sibling (including a half, adopted, or step sibling)

If your employees utilize sick leave hours to care for a family member, please have them indicate this time as SLFM (Sick Leave Family Member) in the e-Timesheet system in the Comments section of the timesheet. Please note we are currently working on an e-Timesheet system modification to include a sick leave drop down where the sick leave can be designated as ‘self’ or ‘family member’
For questions regarding the policy changes, please contact Crawford Grell at Crawford_Grell@rfcuny.org.

For questions regarding the timesheet submission, please contact Human Resources Payroll at #HRPayroll@rfcuny.org

The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH's) budget would get a modest 3.2% raise, to $35.2 billion, in a draft spending bill released by a House of Representatives committee today. To the relief of U.S. research universities, the measure would also explicitly block a proposal by the Trump administration to slash by two-thirds the payments that NIH disburses to cover the overhead costs of the research it funds. Furthermore, the bill ignores a Trump plan to abolish NIH’s widely lauded global health center. Full Text.

CUNY Office of Reserach Limited Submission Policy and Process - Effective Date: May 15, 2017

After fierce pushback from many researchers, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, is dropping a 1-month-old plan to spread funds to more investigators by capping the amount of support any individual scientist could receive. Instead, NIH is creating a new fund that will eventually devote $1 billion a year—about 3% of the agency's current $34 billion budget—specifically to funding proposals from early- and midcareer scientists. The new plan, unveiled on 8 June, is a stunning shift from the earlier policy, which would have limited a principal investigator's support to the equivalent of three standard R01 research grants. The new program will free up funds for about 2400 grants for younger scientists, far more than the original cap plan. Full Text.

Guidance on Payments for CUNY Full-Time Faculty, Adjunct Faculty and Full-Time Non-Faculty Employees

This memorandum, which has been prepared in close consultation with CUNY, establishes guidelines consistent with Federal and State regulations and the University’s and RFCUNY’s policies for allowable compensation that can be paid to the University and/or CUNY faculty and staff from sponsored projects awarded to the University and administered by the RFCUNY. The following memorandum addresses sponsored funding for:

• Full‐time CUNY faculty Reassigned/Released Time and Overload
• Full‐time CUNY faculty summer months work
• Full‐time CUNY faculty fellowship and other leaves
• Adjuncts
• Full‐time CUNY non‐faculty employees
• Honoraria, stipends and other miscellaneous payments

The following information is of particular importance to current CMMI awardees and to persons who have pending proposals with CMMI.  This summer, NSF will move from its current location in Arlington to a new location in Alexandria, Virginia, mandating that the NSF financial system be shut down during the last weeks of the fiscal year.  As a result, all financial actions such as awards must be completed well prior to the end of the fiscal year.  The NSF financial system bars actions on proposals for which the PI or a co-PI has an outstanding or overdue annual or final report on any NSF award.  If you have a pending award action that is blocked by an overdue report, you will not get the award.  Please be sure that all reports that are due on or before August 31 for all NSF awards for which you are a PI or co-PI are submitted by June 15 at the latest. (George Hazelrigg, Deputy Division Director, CMMI)

NEWSLETTER: Proposal and Award Policy (May, 2017)

Please be alert to the risks of publishing in 'so-called' predatory publishers, including having to pay open-access fee charges for articles appearing in journals of ill repute.

These dangers are outlined in the attached Nature article on "The Dark Side of Publishing"

http://www.nature.com/news/investigating-journals-the-dark-side-of-publishing-1.12666

In it, D. Butlers offers the following (p. 435): "A checklist to identify reputable publishers--How to perform due diligence before submitting to a journal or publisher: 

● Check that the publisher provides full, verifiable contact information, including address, on the journal site. Be cautious of those that provide only web contact forms.

● Check that a journal’s editorial board lists recognized experts with full affiliations. Contact some of them and ask about their experience with the journal or publisher.

● Check that the journal prominently displays its policy for author fees.

● Be wary of e-mail invitations to submit to journals or to become editorial board members.

● Read some of the journal’s published articles and assess their quality. Contact past authors to ask about their experience.

● Check that a journal’s peer-review process is clearly described and try to confirm that a claimed impact factor is correct.

● Find out whether the journal is a member of an industry association that vets its members, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (www.doaj.org) or the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (www.oaspa.org).

● Use common sense, as you would when shopping online: if something looks fishy, proceed with caution".

The Office of Grants/Sponsored Programs are proud to honor the faculty and staff who have received, administered, pursued grant awards between 2016-2017, and acknowledge the efforts of colleagues who have made significant contributions to grant-funded programs at Queensborough.