Recently in News Category

May 20, 2013
by Michael J. Spires
The probability that a researcher will have a grant proposal rejected nowadays is about 1. In the current climate, in which grant agencies and foundations are receiving more proposals than ever before even as their budgets stagnate or shrink, the last few remaining decimal places of uncertainty are rapidly disappearing.

It is natural to feel disappointed, angry, hurt, and frustrated when a rejection notice arrives, and it's OK to give in to those feelings--in private, anyway. But you no doubt also want to know what went wrong. As a proposal-development specialist for a federal institution that does a lot of research, I have some suggestions on positive ways to respond, after you've done whatever grieving or venting you need to do. Read the article.

The National Institutes of Health has declared May as 'Asthma Awareness Month' in order to improve the quality of life for nearly 300 million people who are affected with asthma worldwide. Minorities and females living below the poverty line are disproportionately affected by the disease. A 2012 coordinated federal action plan calls for federal agencies and researchers to partner in efforts to reduce asthma disparities.

The federal funding outlook remains cautious for the upcoming fiscal year. Since the federal sequestration took effect in March, cuts to funding awards have been as much as 50 percent but are now being restored to as much as 94 percent of the original funding level. Sequestration impacts to the Nursing Research Service Award (NRSA) has meant no change to existing salary caps for fiscal year 2013. Continuation awards that had been cut to 90 percent may be fully restored, however, fewer awards were given this year. In terms of fiscal year 2014 awards, no reductions are anticipated right now but NIH is not expected to fund inflationary increases. More federal funding information here.

Implemented in 2008, the National Institutes of Health public access policy has had considerable impact on NIH-funded projects.In addition to the PMCID requirement, and the MyNCBI portal for bibilography and citation management, use of the Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPR) will be required for awards with start dates on or after July 1, 2013, according to NIH NOT-OD-13-035.

The NIH NOT-OD-12-160 announcement states that NIH "will delay processing of non-competing continuation grant awards if publications arising from that award are not in compliance with the NIH public access policy," which includes use of the RPPR for grant activity reporting. A module within the eRA commons, the RPPR is intended to streamline noncompeting progress reports.This week ONRS has worked with two SoN principal investigators to test the system. Check out these NIH resources for more information:
~RPPR Training for Grantees Webinar - October 17, 2012 (1 hr 47 mins)
~RPPR Training for Grantees - October 17, 2012 (PPT - 1.3 MB)
~NIH RPPR Instruction Guide (PDF - 1 MB)
~NIH RPPR Instruction Guide (MS Word - 2 MB)
~Screen Shots of the R01-like RPPR (PDF - 1.7 MB)
~Learn how the RPPR differs from eSNAP
~FAQs

NIH has partnered with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to link NCBI's personal online tool, "MyNCBI," to the eRA Commons. "MyNCBI" is a free user account system that can be used to store data (such as PubMed citations), searches and website preferences. Once your "MyNCBI" portal account has been established, you can use the "My Bibliography" feature to maintain and manage authored works, such as journal articles, manuscripts accepted for publication, books, and book chapters. Merging the capacity of the eRA Commons and "My NCBI" allows Commons users to populate citation data from PubMed, PubMed Central, and the NIH Manuscript system. For in-depth information watch the webinar conducted by SPA.

As required by the National Institutes of Health in its 2008 public access policy PMCIDs (Pub Med Central identifiers) are required for peer-reviewed journal articles that relate to NIH grant-funded publications. NIH's submission tips recommend that principal investigators obtain PMCIDs through the eRA Commons. Stricter policy enforcement began in April 2013 and ONRS featured a Feb. 18 presentation that provides an overview of the public access policy, four methods for obtaining PMCIDs and other mandatory changes required by the NIH. Check out the UMN Sponsored Projects Administration website for tutorials, presentations and updates. Also, the Diehl Hall biomedical library has staff dedicated to answering public access policy questions as they relate to PMCIDs and MyNCBI. Contact them at public-access@umn.edu

Thanks to the SoN Business Office, a new poster printing request form is now available so you can order research posters for print production. Thanks in advance for completing and signing the form to assist in the efficient processing of procurement card charges. Send your completed form to SON_ONR@lists.umn.edu
~NEW_PosterPrintingRequestForm_04.22.13.pdf

An April 19 article in the Minnesota Daily reports UMN Vice President for Research Brian Herman as saying that the $749 million research enterprise will be largely unaffected this fiscal year, but the future is less certain. According to previous reports from OVPR and the UMN Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA), possible future impacts from sequestration cuts could include:

• Continuation awards may be reduced or not issued; or a reduction in scope of award could be negotiated
• Plans for new grants or cooperative agreements may be re-scoped, delayed or canceled depending upon available resources
• Cuts of up to 5.1 percent on existing awards

Under the proposed 2014 budget submitted to Congress earlier this month, research funding would see a slight increase from last year. The FY 2014 budget proposal includes $967 billion for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) providing $80.1 billion in discretionary funding, an increase of $3.9 billion from 2012. A total of 54 percent of the HHS budget is designated to Medicare, and 31 percent to Medicaid, amounting to an $854.3 billion price tag to fund the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Proposed biomedical research funding includes:

• $471 million (a 1.5 percent increase equaling $274 million) for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a total of $31.3 billion
• a $228 million increase for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for a total of $9.2 billion
• The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) would receive a proposed $434 million budget
• and a 1.3 percent increase for the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) totaling $148 million is proposed

Star Tribune, April 16
by Dan Browning
Minnesota stands to lose tens of millions of dollars in federal medical research funds this year as a result of the congressionally mandated budget cuts known as sequestration.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that it will cut spending by 5.1 percent in fiscal year 2013, which ends Sept. 30. That translates into a nearly $20 million annual cut for Mayo, which gets about 40 percent of its $600 million in annual research funding from NIH. At the University of Minnesota, sequestration will reduce the money available to support students and postgraduate scholars who work on medical research projects, according to Dr. Brian Herman, vice president of research at the U and a professor of cellular and structural biology.Full article here.