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Month: April 2017

NSF CAREER Workshop – April 18th

Posted in NSF

NSF Career Award
This workshop provides a wonderful opportunity for faculty members to gain valuable insight into the NSF CAREER program, as successful WPI CAREER award recipients discuss the proposal submission process and life with a CAREER award.  In addition, there will be a discussion on the proposal review process.  The main goal of the workshop is to provide an interesting and useful forum for faculty, where experiences with WPI CAREER award recipients will be exchanged and questions can be discussed. Professors Sarah Olson (Mathematical Sciences) and Nima Rahbar (Civil & Environmental Engineering) have graciously agreed to lead the workshop this year. They, along with additional CAREER-winning faculty members will participate on the panel.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
George C. Gordon Library Conference Room 303

NIH Interim Salary Cap Guidance

Posted in NIH

NIH have issued interim guidance on salary limits for NIH grants and cooperative agreements. The direct salary limitation follows Executive Level II of the Federal Executive pay scale, which was previously set at $185,100, and increased to $187,000 effective January 8, 2017. This means that for awards issued in previous years that were restricted to Executive Level II, including competing awards already issued in fiscal year 2017, grantees may rebudget to accommodate the current Executive Level II salary level as long as:

  1. adequate funds are available in active awards; and
  2. the salary cap increase is consistent with the institutional base salary.

However, no additional funds will be provided to these grant awards.

Note that we provide the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) postdoctoral stipend levels and tuition/fees for FY 2017 in NOT-OD-17-003. Until further notice, the NRSA undergraduate and predoctoral stipends and tuition/fees will remain at the levels announced in NOT-OD-16-062.

National Science Foundation Update: Collaborator Template

Posted in NSF

The National Science Foundation is initiating a new pilot on submission of Collaborators and Other Affiliations (COA) information. Effective April 24th 2017, NSF will require the use of the spreadsheet linked below as a template for identifying COA information. The content requirements specified in the spreadsheet are consistent with Chapter II.C.1.e of the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide. The spreadsheet has been developed to be fillable, however, the content and format requirements must not be altered by the user. This spreadsheet must be saved in .xlsx or .xls format and directly uploaded into FastLane as a Collaborators and Other Affiliations Single Copy Document. It should be noted that the template has been tested in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. FastLane will convert the uploaded .xlsx or .xls files to .PDF. Using the .xlsx or .xls format will enable preservation of searchable text that otherwise would be lost. It is imperative that this document be uploaded in .xlsx or .xls only. Uploading a document in any format other than .xlsx or .xls may delay the timely processing and review of your proposal.

We have updated the template on our Proposal Development page, and you may also view the new policy and template here.

Please contact your Office of Sponsored Programs administrator with any questions.