Updates from Sponsored Programs to BU’s research community.
Personnel Activity Reports (PARs) Have Been Distributed to Department Administrators/Effort Coordinators
To comply with Federal Regulations, all Boston University employees who are paid from Sponsored Research funds receive a Personnel Activity Report (PAR) on a semi-annual basis to review and certify their salary and effort. PARs for the period July – December 2025 have been distributed this week via email to department administrators/effort coordinators. Please note, […]
Recent NIH Notices and Updates
Sponsored Programs would like to bring to your attention recent NIH Notices and Updates impacting awards and proposals. If you have any questions, please contact your Pre Award Officer. NIH Requires Use of the eRA Prior Approval Module for the Submission of ALL Prior Approval Requests (NOT-OD-26-026) Below are the prior approval request types that are available in eRA Commons for NIH applicants and recipients that […]
NIH FY2026 Salary Limitation for Grants & Cooperative Agreements
NIH has issued updated guidance regarding the salary limitation for NIH grant and cooperative agreement awards and extramural research and development contract awards. Effective January 11, 2026, the salary limitation for Executive Level II is $228,000. See NIH guidance NOT-0D-26-034 for full details. The new salary cap may be used for budgeting purposes effective immediately. […]
Update on Cost-Share and F&A waiver approvals for CRC Sponsored Research Proposals
We are announcing a change in the process to obtain a cost-share and/or F&A waiver approval for Charles River Campus (CRC) Sponsored Research proposals. Effective February 16, 2026, proposals that include these requests should be submitted to the Associate Vice President for Sponsored Programs, Diane Baldwin, at dbaldwin@bu.edu for approval prior to submission to ospera@bu.edu. […]
SciENcv Training
A new interactive training walkthrough is now available covering the full SciENcv workflow, from account setup through document download and submission. This walkthrough covers all sponsors that use the system, but specifically focuses on helping researchers comply with the new NIH requirement to use SciENcv for Biographical Sketches and Current and Pending (Other) Support documents, […]
New Streamlined Process for CRC Student Collaboration on BMC/BUMC Human Subjects Research
Boston University’s Institutional Review Boards (IRB) announce a new, streamlined process for Charles River Campus (CRC) students collaborating on human subjects research at Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC) and/or Boston Medical Center (BMC). What’s Changed Previously, each research study involving CRC students collaborating on a BMC/BUMC study required a reliance agreement between the CRC IRB […]
Update: NIH Confirms SciENcv Hyperlinks Are Allowable
Dear Colleagues, We have received clarification from the NIH Policy Office regarding hyperlinks in SciENcv-generated biosketches: “The links automatically generated in the Biographical Sketch Common Form in SciENcv are allowable.” This means you do not need to remove hyperlinked ORCIDs or other system-generated links from your biosketches. SImply use the document as produced by SciENcv. […]
Updates from Sponsored Programs on Grant Management at BU
Dear Colleagues, We are aware of concerns regarding the transition to SciENcv for NIH biosketches and the hyperlinks that appear in the generated documents. As you may know, NIH biosketch format pages have traditionally prohibited hyperlinks. However, biosketches produced through SciENcv include hyperlinked ORCID IDs and other elements by default. We understand this has caused […]
Huron Update: December 2025
We wanted to share an update on our implementation of Huron Grants and Agreements, the new enterprise research administration system for the Office of Research. Where We Are The project is currently in the onboarding phase. The BU team includes 61 people from various parts of the University. Representatives from the schools are included to […]
Federal Research Policy Updates: Key Changes You Need to Know for NIH and NSF
Federal agencies have released several notices impacting research security and administrative requirements for proposals and awards. These updates align with the NSPM-33 directive and CHIPS Act to protect U.S. research and reduce administrative burden and strengthen compliance across federally funded research. Below is a summary of the latest notices from NIH and NSF. BU specific […]