Not sure if this requirement applies to your NIH grant? Your Notice of Award will specify whether an award uses SNAP. Awards routinely using SNAP are “K” awards and “R” awards. The RPPR requirement also applies to all fellowship (“F”) awards as well.

The attached documentation will help guide you through the RPPR process. If you need additional help, please contact your Sponsored Programs Research Administrator. You can find contact info for assistance in this NIH Guide notice, or get in touch with your NIH grants management specialist. The NIH RPPR page and Frequently Asked Questions also contain additional information to help you.

Research Performance Progress Report Community Slides

RPPR Component Instructions

RPPR Reference Sheet

• The overall number of NIH funded research project grants is expected to be 34,902 in FY 2013, down from the FY 2012 level of 36,259 (-1,357). The reduction in the total amount of RPG funding is 6.1%.
• The number of new and competing awards is expected to be 8,283 in FY 2013, down from the FY 2012 level of 8,986 (-703), a 8.6% reduction in funding.
• The average cost of new and competing awards is estimated to remain nearly the same (down <1%).
• The number of training slots is expected to drop from 16,305 to 15,837, a decrease of 468.

To review a complete copy of these tables please click on the following link. Questions regarding tables should be referred to BU Sponsored Programs: on the Charles River Campus at (617) 353-4365 and the Medical Campus at (617) 638-4600.

FYI: National Science Foundation (NSF) System Enhancements

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that on March 18, 2013 it will start using the new compliance monitoring system within FastLane, its electronic proposal submission system. FastLane will check full, versus the preliminary, proposals for 10 required sections prior to submission. Proposals missing any of the required sections will be returned with an error message. The 10 sections are:

• Project summary
• Data management plan
• Postdoctoral mentoring plan (if applicable)
• Project description
• References cited
• Biographical sketch(s)
• Budget
• Budget justification
• Facilities, equipment and other resources

FastLane does provide prompts to PIs warning them when certain elements are missing.

For more information please see NSF announcement “Important Notice Regarding Automated Checking of FastLane Proposals Beginning March 18, 2013” at NSF website (http://www.nsf.gov/)

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For those who attended the recent OSP/PAFO Administrators Forum, a copy of the meeting minutes and associated presentations from the DA Forums held on February 11^th and 14^th can be found on-line here: http://www.bu.edu/cfo/post-award-financial-operations/resources/admin-forum/.

If there are any topics you wish to be discussed at future Forums, please let us know.

1. NSF programmatic changes for applications submitted after January 14, 2013
2. RPRR replacing NIH eSNAP
3. Research Related Consulting Policy
4. Grant deadlines—need for advanced submissions
5. NIH Public Access Policy

1. NSF Programmatic Changes
NSF has issued a new Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide (NSF 13-1). http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf13001.  The major change for PIs to be aware of is that the Project Summary now requires that the PI insert information into three text boxes including:

1. an overview;
2. a statement on intellectual merit of the proposed activity;
3. a statement on the broader impacts of the proposed activity.

The Forms section for proposals now must use the new formats.  For FAQs, please see: http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/papp/papp13_1/pappgfastlane_faqs.jsp

Other changes include:

• New Certifications including the Evidence of Institutional Support, Tax Liabilities, and Felony Convictions
• If no person-months request, PI should NOT be named on the budget.  Rather it should be mentioned in the Facilities, Equipment section where you must DESCRIBE institutional support which includes PI participation

2. RPRR Replacing eSNAP
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has mandated that federal agencies implement a federal-wide Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) for submission of required annual or other interim performance reporting on research grant and cooperative agreement awards to standardize recipient reporting on federally-funded research projects.  The NIH has taken the lead on implementing this process and has released the guidelines for completing a progress report via RPRR (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/rppr/).  It is expected that in the spring of 2013 the NIH will eliminate the eSNAP module in the eRA Commons and all SNAP awards will be required to use the RPPR to submit progress reports.

There are several important changes (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/rppr/rppr_vs_esnap.htm).  There are separate screens for the individual reporting components, if a budget is to be submitted, it must be completed using the SF424 forms, and there are some additional questions regarding foreign research components and personnel effort reporting.

Most importantly, the difference is once you begin a progress report using RPRR you must complete the progress report using RPRR.  There can be no mid-point shift to eSNAP.  Therefore, please advise your Department Administrator AND your OSP Research Administrator before you begin preparation as to whether you will be using eSNAP or RPRR and we can best assist you through the process.

3. Research Related Consulting Policy
On December 11, 2012, John Imbergamo and Gillian Emmons released the New Independent Contractor Qualification & Engagement Process (i.e. the new consulting policy) including the Research Related Consulting Agreement (RRCA).  The new guidelines, forms, and instructions can be found both on Comptroller Resources, as well as on the Sourcing & Procurement page.

4. Grant Deadlines—Advanced submission helps everyone
In response to PIs needs to have the maximum amount of time to perfect the scientific components of a grant application, the University’s five-day submission rule was adjusted in 2011 so that administrative forms and the budget will continue to be due five days before the deadline, but the technical proposal may be submitted later.

However, we would like to provide some guidance as to why OSP typically requests the five business-day window for the completed application.  Examples of deadline issues include:

1)    The e-submission sites (i.e. grants.gov) often state on their websites it may take up to two business days to process an application.  In most cases it only takes 10-20 minutes and usually not longer than an hour, but it can be problematic at the last minute when errors may not surface until after the deadline has passed.

2)    Any corrections needed to resolve any errors takes time to make either in OSP, the Department, or both.  For electronic submissions, correction of errors or addressing warnings after the due date is not considered a valid reason for a late submission. Additionally, corrupted electronic application forms are not considered a “System Issue.”

3)    The e-submission sites give themselves some amount of processing time to respond to Help Tickets: i.e. eRA Commons allows itself 2 business days to respond to any electronic Help Tickets submitted relating to application submission problems, and will not consider an unresolved Help Ticket submitted with less than 2 business days as a free pass to extend your submission.  A phone call to the eRA Helpdesk may be slightly more fruitful, but on the due date, two or more hours spent on hold is not unheard of.

With the above scenarios in mind, OSP recommends submitting the complete final proposal to OSP at least two full business days before the deadline.  Please note, OSP cannot commit to successful transmission and acceptance if submitted less than two full business days due to the high volume of proposals and time typically required to resolve all issues.  Please continue to communicate your intentions to apply for funding as soon as possible so OSP can plan for appropriate staffing and resources.

5. Important Information Regarding NIH Public Access Policy
The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research.  It requires researchers to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.  The Policy requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication.

As of Spring, 2013, NIH will begin to hold processing of non-competing continuation awards if publications arising from grant awards are not in compliance with the public access policy.  Once publications are in compliance, awards will go forward.

The Alumni Medical Library can offer assistance in getting articles in compliance; please contact A’llyn Ettien, Head of Technical Services at aettien3@bu.edu, 617-638-4236 or the Reference Desk at refquest@bu.edu, 617-638-4228.  Their website devoted to the NIH Public Access Policy can be accessed here.

What does this mean for you?
If you’re a current user with access to the Grants Management folder within the BUworks Reporting Portal:

• You’ll see updates to existing reports to include additional fields that can assist with your reporting needs.
• You’ll see a few new reports to help summarize and link Proposal and Award data.
• Quick reference guides and data field definitions will be available for each report in scope for this project (see below).
• Additional classroom training sessions will be available after go-live.

Scope of Reports

• Proposal Activity: Use this report to obtain information about proposals that have been submitted during a given period.
• Award Activity – Grant Level: Use this report to obtain the grant-level activity (new funding, renewal funding, continuation funding, incremental funding, or supplemental funding) that has taken place during a given period.
• Award Activity – Sponsored Program Level: Use this report to obtain the sponsored program-level activity (new funding, renewal funding, continuation funding, incremental funding, or supplemental funding) that has taken place during a given period.
• Cumulative Award: Use this report to search for the total amount of funding received within a given fiscal period, compared with the cumulative obligated amount to date and the amount of additional funding that is anticipated for each selected grant.
• Proposal to Funded Award: Use this report to obtain both proposal and award level data points to show the relationship between a proposal and its funded award during a specified period of time.
• Proposal and Award Summary: Use this report to obtain the number of proposals that were submitted and how many awards were received within a given period.
• Multi-Year Proposal and Award Summary: Use this report to compare the number and associated dollar amounts of proposals submitted and awards received in a fiscal period or range of fiscal periods with another fiscal period or range of fiscal periods.

Depending on a user’s level of access, all reports can be run for an investigator, fund center, school, campus, or the entire university.

Timeline

• Fall 2012: The project team gained input from representatives from Office of Sponsored Programs, Post Award Financial Operation, BUMC IT, School of Medicine, College of Engineering and College or Arts & Sciences to help develop the project scope and report requirements.
• January – March 2013: The project team is confirming requirements, forming documentation, and developing and testing the reports. We will also be preparing training materials for end users.
• Early April 2013: We will conduct small focus groups to provide any last minute input before making the reports available to the broader research community.
• Mid-April 2013: Reports will be available for all users with appropriate access through the BUworks Central Portal (Reporting). Quick reference guides will be available.
• April – May 2013: Classroom trainings will be held to provide hands-on training opportunities for end users before and after go live.

Questions?
If you have any questions on this project, please feel free to reach out to any of the following individuals: Jennifer Marron (jmarron@bu.edu), Monica Russell (mjrussel@bu.edu) or Jennifer King (jlking@bu.edu).

For those who attended the recent OSP/PAFO Administrators Forum, a copy of the meeting minutes and all presentations can be found on-line at:  http://www.bu.edu/cfo/post-award-financial-operations/resources/admin-forum/.

Included on-line is a master Matrix of OSP and PAFO Roles & Responsibilities.  This is a more detailed view than the presentation given at the meeting.

If there are any topics you wish to be discussed at future Forums, please let us know.