Dear colleagues,

We continue to move forward into spring semester with lots of good student news. Our MPH Admission Committee is processing applications quickly and our Admissions team is rolling out new outreach activities to support our on-campus MPH program,  including last Friday’s virtual Accepted Students Day and visits to several major recruitment hubs. Our doctoral applicants are very strong as we enthusiastically continue to support these programs, even as some of our peer institutions back off.

However, there has been no new news of cuts to research from NIH. We continue to wait for a national budget, the installation of new leaders, and judicial decisions.

Guidance from the University Office of Sponsored Programs remains unchanged. Any concerns by PIs about non-renewal of federal grant funding, stop work orders, or notices of funding “pauses” should be immediately directed to Dean McClean. PIs should not take personnel actions in response to anticipated federal funding disruptions without prior consultation with and approval from Sponsored Programs, which Dean McClean will help facilitate. Check for updates on the University’s online resource for updates about the 2025 administration transition.

The guidance also remains unchanged regarding website content (projects, faculty profiles, programs) of DEI content. The BU DEI FAQs are now live under the Community Help & Advocacy Resources section of the Living Our Values website.

Here, I reiterate specific guidance on your research activities:

Existing awards:

  • We should continue with all funded work as planned.
  • We encourage PIs to check their spend rates (i.e., roughly 50% spent through 6 months, 75% through 9 months, etc.), aiming to use the funds awarded in the prescribed grant year.
  • For grants in their final year, PIs should not assume they will have access to any remaining funds beyond the award end date. Discuss with your Program officers.
  • If you receive a communication indicating that certain activities must be paused or terminated on your projects, please reach out to Dean McClean to discuss before responding to Project Officials or federal agencies.

New submissions:

  • Grants proposing on-campus research should be submitted using the current negotiated F&A rate of 63.5%. In the budget justification, it is important to include the following sentence: Boston University requests our current federally negotiated rate, but we will accept the rate approved at the time of award. The purpose is to make sure the grant doesn’t get removed from consideration at any point in the process if the approved rate ends up changing to a rate other than 63.5%.

Regarding our broader financial resources, upon Provost approval, we have managed to ensure that you no longer have to:

  1. Fill out the Labor Control Exception form for positions that are fully grant funded.
  2. Complete Travel Authorization requests for travel that is fully grant funded.

All labor requests, travel, and external consultants on unrestricted funds (school money), gifts, and discretionary funds continue to fall under the budget controls and a request for approval is required.

We recognize that these requests present extra work for faculty and staff, but they are necessary to maintain financial stability and ensure that resources are allocated strategically. Please direct any questions to Ira Lazic at iralazic@bu.edu.

As always, we deeply value the work you do  and the community we have built here at SPH. We appreciate that these are frustrating and anxious days. Take a minute to be kind to each other, and to the Registrar’s staff who have been working under university deadlines with a difficult information system to make our classes flow.

We are working diligently to keep up with the changing landscape and will share additional updates and guidance as soon as we are able. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to me directly if you have questions.

Finally, following the good attendance at last week’s discussion, we will be holding another virtual Open Forum for Faculty and Staff on Friday, February 28 at 12:00-1:00pm ET.

Faculty and Staff members, I will see you at School Assembly today at 10am.

Michael Stein
Dean Ad Interim

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