IN THE NEWS

Office of Research retools limited-submissions process

As funding agencies persist in limiting the number of proposals they will accept from colleges and universities and as faculty interest in externally funded opportunities continues to grow, the UT Office of Research is making changes in its limited-submissions process.

Statement of Intent required
In the future, the Office of Research will routinely ask for a statement of intent to propose on a given solicitation that limits the number of submissions. The announcement of a limited submission will state a deadline for submitting the statement of intent. This allows the Office of Research to judge whether an internal competition needs to be held to choose the university’s official proposers. Only those faculty who have e-mailed their statement of intent by the deadline will be allowed to participate in the internal competition.

The statement of intent will include:

• The name and contact information for the PI
• The working title of the proposal
• Two to four sentences describing the project
• A list of other possible collaborators, both internal and external

Statements of intent are to be sent via e-mail to Bill Dockery (dockeryb@utk.edu) and Jim Mazzouccolo (jmazzouc@utk.edu) with a subject line that specifies the agency name, the specific solicitation, and the words “statement of intent” (for example, "NSF MRI statement of intent").

New listserv will carry news of limited submissions
In order to be sure that all faculty with an interest in limited-submission opportunities are notified in a timely manner, the UT Office of Research is starting a listserv called LIMITSUB.

The LIMITSUB listserv will carry news of significant opportunities that include language limiting the number of proposals the university can submit to a given RFP, as well as news directly related to limited-submission policies and practices.

All UT Knoxville faculty are being notified by e-mail of the availability of the LIMITSUB listserv. It is an opt-in listserv, that is, interested faculty must take action to join the listserv. If you have an interest in submissions that may have an institutional limit on proposals, you must sign up for LIMITSUB.

To join the LIMITSUB listserv, go to http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/limitsub.html. Choose “Join or leave the list” and make the appropriate choices.

NOTE: Since the purpose of LIMITSUB is to get out the news of limit-submission opportunities as quickly as possible, we recommend choosing a “regular” subscription type, rather than digests or indexes. Only Office of Research personnel will be allowed to post to LIMITSUB; safeguards are in place to control the possibility of spamming or e-mail spoofing.

News of limited-submission opportunities will continue to be posted on the UT Office of Research website and published in the “News & Opportunities” newsletter that is distributed to faculty mailboxes biweekly.

The Office of Research is not able to identify all opportunities that may have limits on submissions. If you find an RFP that has institutional limits on submissions, please contact Bill Dockery (dockeryb@utk.edu, 865-974-2187) and Jim Mazzouccolo (jmazzouc@utk.edu, 865-974-3466). If you proceed without contacting the office, you risk developing a proposal that will not be submitted by the university because other proposals have been chosen.

Bill and Jim are also your resource for questions about limited submissions or the LIMITSUB listserv

New training courses offered

The Office of Research is offering new training courses in the following areas:

• Proposal Development -- The Yellow Sheet: everything you need to know to complete the Document Review/Approval sheet for your proposal.
• Proposal Development -- Budget Basics: how to complete a basic budget for your proposal.
• Finding Funding with COS: learn how to find funding opportunities in all disciplines using Community of Science.
• IRB/Human Subjects Research: an overview of IRB policies and procedures including how to complete the Form A and Form B for human subject research.

Most classes are approximately one hour and are held in the Office of Research conference room, but our trainers are able to come to your department to give any presentation. HR128 credit is available for UTK employees.

Contact Lesli Rowan, OR Training Coordinator, at ortraining@utk.edu, or see the Training website. For IRB/Human Subjects training, contact Brenda Lawson, IRB Administrator, at blawson@utk.edu or 865-974-3466.

Other Compliance training is also available (Radiation Safety, Biosafety, Export Control, and IACUC). Please see the Research Comnpliance website for links to those areas. If there are other research-related courses you would like to see, please send us your suggestions.

New social justice center wins OK

A new center intended to promote interdisciplinary research on social justice issues has been approved by the UT Knoxville Office of Research.

The Center for the Study of Social Justice will be headed by Stephanie A Bohon, associate professor of sociology, whose field of research involves the migration and settlement of Latinos in the southwestern United States and their interactions with existing communities.

The center will serve as a forum for faculty and graduate students in the behavioral and information sciences and law to collaborate on research projects and disseminate their work to a broader audience.

Bohon defines social justice research as any activity intended to inform scholars and policymakers about what is fair, equitable, and beneficial for people individually and in their associations with others.

The goal of the center is to assist faculty in getting and managing research awards on topics in social justice and to help graduate students with support for dissertation research.

Cuts in library hours planned

In response to impending cuts to the budget, the University Libraries is considering significant reductions in UT library hours. Barbara Dewey, dean of libraries, said the limitations will focus primarily on break periods and the summer. Dewey (bdewey@utk.edu, 974-6600) invites comments and questions on the reductions, which will take effect at the end of the spring semester 2009.

RECOVERY ACT OPPORTUNITIES

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The National Institutes of Health has developed a new initiative called the NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research. The program will make 200 or more awards in 15 high-priority topics within Broad Challenge Areas, including behavior, behavioral change, and prevention; bioethics, enabling technologies, genomics, etc. Additional stimulus monies may be available to support comparative effectiveness research that evaluates the impact of different treatment options for a given medical condition and set of patients.

Deadline: Application through Grants.gov, April 27, 2009

General information | Specific information

Department of Education (DOEd)

The U.S. Department of Education has provided an overview of how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will affect funding for the nation’s schools and institutions of higher education. The goals of DOEd spending are to save and create jobs quickly, to improve student achievement through school improvement and reform, to ensure transparency and accountability in the spending of stimulus funds, and to invest the funds in ways that do not result in a drop-off of programming when the funds are expended in two years.

More information

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

The National Endowment for the Arts has designed a plan to expedite distribution of critical funds for the national, regional, state, and local levels of the nonprofit arts industry for projects that focus on the preservation of jobs in the arts.

Significant provisions:

• Provides salary support for one or more positions critical to an organization’s artistic mission
• Supports fees for previously engaged artists, etc., to extend the period of engagement
• Applicants must have an NEA award in FY 2006 or following years

Limited submission: Each organization is limited to one application, though there are exceptions that might allow separate entities of the University of Tennessee to seek an award.

Deadlines: Internal notification of intent, March 14, 2009 to UT Office of Research (dockeryb@utk.edu)
Submission through Grants.gov, April 2, 2009 by 11:59 p.m.

More information

OPPORTUNITIES

NIH Application Assistance Web Seminar March 16

The National Institutes of Health through its National Center for Research Resources will hold a web seminar on March 16, 2009 to provide technical assistance in the preparation of applications for construction and core facilities improvements monies. The web seminar is intended for biomedical and behavioral research communities.

More information

Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth Grants

The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth is preparing to distribute federal funds to local communities for delinquency-related programs. Three grants are available:

• Federal Formula Grant -- delinquency prevention and intervention
• Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) Grant -- intervention in underage drinking practices
• Juvenile Accountability Block Grant (JABG) -- holding juveniles accountable for offenses committee

The commission is holding training sessions for organizations wanting to apply for grants and will give funding priority to groups who have attended the training.

The deadline for registering for the JABG training is March 16, 2009; for the EUDL training, March 18, 2009.

More information (PDF)

NSF Tectonics

The National Science Foundation, through its Division of Earth Sciences, is seeking proposals that elucidate the processes that act on the lithosphere at various time-scales and length-scales, either at depth or at the surface. Because understanding such large-scale phenomena commonly requires a variety of expertise and methods, the program supports integrated research involving the disciplines of structural geology, petrology, geochronology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, geomorphology, rock mechanics, paleomagnetics, geodesy, and other geophysical techniques.

Deadline: June 6, 2009

More information

NSF Geophysics

The National Science Foundation’s Geophysics program supports basic research in the physics of the solid earth to explore its composition, structure, and processes. Laboratory, field, theoretical, and computational studies are supported. Topics include seismicity, seismic wave propagation, and the nature and occurrence of earthquakes; the earth’s magnetic, gravity, and electrical fields; the earth’s thermal structure; and geodynamics.

Deadline: May 5, 2009

More information

NSF Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems (VOSS)

The NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure VOSS program supports scientific research directed at advancing the understanding of what constitutes effective virtual organizations and under what conditions virtual organizations can enable and enhance scientific, engineering, and education production and innovation. Disciplinary perspectives may include anthropology, complexity sciences, computer and information sciences, decision and management sciences, economics, engineering, organization theory, organizational behavior, social and industrial psychology, public administration, and sociology. Research methods may span a broad variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, including (but not limited to): ethnographies, surveys, simulation studies, experiments, comparative case studies, and network analyses.

Deadlines: May 26, 2009

More information

Dreyfus Foundation Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences

The Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation is seeking proposals that are judged likely to significantly advance the chemical sciences, including biochemistry, chemical engineering, science communication, and science education. Examples of areas of interest include the increase in public awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the chemical sciences; innovative approaches to chemistry education at all levels (K–12, undergraduate, and graduate); and efforts to make chemistry careers more attractive. Research proposals are not customarily considered.

Deadline: June 4, 2009 for initial inquiry

More information

DTRA Basic Research for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency is seeking basic research white papers to address the full spectrum of counter-WMD (weapons of mass destruction) challenges. The goal of the research is to reduce, eliminate and counter the threat and effects from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosives. White papers that describe applied research will not be considered.

Deadlines: Registration for DTRA proposal submission -- April 1, 2009
Phase I white-paper submission --May 13, 2009

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News & Opportunities is published by the Office of Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.