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I’m happy to report that UC was successful in securing funding through the Ohio Research Scholars program. The university will lead a $28 million aerospace research program, focusing on power and propulsion The grant, also involving Ohio State University (OSU) and the University of Dayton (UD), is part of the state’s investment in research for economic development.
UC scientists, led by Awatef Hamed, PhD, aerospace engineering department director and Bradley Jones Professor of Propulsion and Heat Transfer and Fluid Dynamics, will study power and propulsion systems low-emission energy sources and aerospace system issues such as acoustics, turbine aerodynamics and heat transfer. The proposal includes recruiting three Ohio Research Scholars at UC, one at OSU and one at UD. Read more.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Hamed, her team, and the many others who submitted proposals for this program.
As always, we welcome your feedback and encourage you to check out research.uc.edu for the latest research magazine, news and announcements.
Sandra Degen, PhD
Vice President for Research
NEWS/GRANTS
Strasser Named Director of Research Compliance
Jane Strasser, PhD, has been named compliance officer and director of research compliance and regulatory affairs. Her appointment becomes effective Sept. 1, 2008. She replaces Melissa Colbert, PhD, who has led the research compliance office and served as UC’s compliance officer since September 2006. Colbert has accepted a position with the National Institutes of Health and will begin that role Sept. 1. Strasser will assume the compliance officer role on a part-time basis beginning this month—working with Colbert as the position is transitioned. Read the full announcement.
Interdisciplinary Grant Awards Announced
The University Research Council (URC) has awarded six grants—each totaling approximately $25,000—through its spring interdisciplinary grant competition. The intent of this granting program is to bring faculty together from across the university to work on an interdisciplinary research project that will result in applications to federal granting agencies. Forty-one proposals were submitted from a total of 150 faculty representing 10 of UC’s 16 colleges. Pediatric faculty working through Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation were also represented. See the full list of projects and grant winners.
Undergraduate Research Poster Presentation
Don’t forget to check out the first university-wide Undergraduate Research Poster Session. The week-long event, designed to give students the opportunity to display their research to the university community, wraps up Friday in Tangeman University Center (TUC) with two feedback sessions and a luncheon for participants. You can view posters until 3 p.m. Friday in the atrium on the third floor of TUC. For more information, contact Cheri Westmoreland, EdD, at (513) 556-2880 or e-mail cheri.westmoreland@uc.edu.
URC Awards 103 Grants in 2007–08
The URC awarded nearly $730,000 (103) grants to faculty and graduate students during the 2007–2008 academic year. More than 330 applications were submitted for the five URC competitions—faculty research support program, summer faculty fellowship program, graduate student summer fellowship program and two interdisciplinary grant program competitions. A special thanks goes out to Mary Beth Genter, URC chair, and all committee members in the areas of arts and humanities, behavioral and social sciences, life sciences, and physical sciences and engineering. See the full listing of URC committee members at http://www.uc.edu/ucresearch/researchcouncil.html.
SRS Staffing Changes
Mary Ucci has joined Sponsored Research Services (SRS) as director of the grants division. She returns to UC after eight years of service to Northern Kentucky University (NKU). Ucci has 13 years of experience managing a sponsored programs office and thorough knowledge of sponsored programs concepts. She brings a breadth of experience in topics such as federal agency regulations, human subject regulations and responsible conduct of research. Ucci initiated and created the NKU Research Foundation that enabled that university to be more competitive on a national level for extramural funding. She has a bachelor’s degree in geology from SUNY Brockport and a master’s of public administration from NKU. SRS will host a welcome reception for Ucci June 13 at 3:30 p.m. in University Hall Suite 540.
John Ungruhe, former associate director of sponsored program accounting, has been named director of sponsored program accounting. Ungruhe, with his dedication, experience and hard work, will continue to serve the needs of UC’s research enterprise, providing the highest quality of customer service to university faculty and administrators and granting agencies. Please join us in welcoming Ungruhe to his new role.
Update on SRS Processes
SRS is responsible for submitting proposals to funding agencies requesting support for research and other scholarly projects. Resulting awards are made to UC and SRS administers them on behalf of faculty and staff. Faculty and staff members who direct sponsored programs under university auspices are responsible for effective conduct of these projects. Collaboration between faculty, staff and SRS is critical to the success of UC’s research enterprise.
The Research Grants Advisory Committee (RGAC) was established in 2007 to address faculty concerns related to sponsored administration processes. Over the past several months SRS and RGAC have worked together to find solutions to faculty concerns. Based on the committee’s recommendations, goals have been established to improve communication, decrease transaction processing time and standardize and simplify redundant and duplicative policies and procedures.
Actions thus far include:
- development of a guide to help principal investigators (PIs) and their support staff fulfill their responsibilities to obtain extramural funding.
The guide is called Checklist for Proposal Development and Submission. You can find the new checklist on the SRS Web site in the gray “quick links” box on the right side of the page.
- elimination of a second-level review for proposal applications.
Sue Cutter, Dee Douglas, Barbara Kuertz, Steven Manning and Brenda Slaughter, senior grant administrators in the grants division, now submit proposal applications without supervisory approval. This new process results in more timely submission of proposal applications. SRS hopes to expand this flexibility soon to other grant administrators in the office. Look for further updates next month.
- development of a survey to provide feedback on SRS customer service.
Faculty members (PIs) who submit proposal applications receive an e-mail with a link to the survey. Your feedback is important to us. Please take the time to let us know how we are doing.
- elimination of the standard late-proposal e-mail faculty members have received in the past.
SRS continues to do its best to submit all proposals on time.
Changes to Grants.gov
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) will transition to the new Grants.gov Adobe proposal application software in December 2008. View the NIH timeline for this transition. The NSF has not announced its detailed timeline, but check Researcher’s Gateway for future announcements.
Grant Opportunities on Researcher’s Gateway
Check out the grants/funding page on Researcher’s Gateway for a listing of grant opportunities and funding resources. This page provides links to information on grant-writing workshops, periodic funding announcements, internal grant opportunities, and even an archive of the Weekly NIH Guide and SSTI Weekly Digest.
Changes to NIH Reimbursement Process for Reviewers
The NIH is no longer using the U.S. Treasury Central Contractor Registration (CCR) for electronic disbursement of reviewers’ honoraria and reimbursements for expenses incurred during their participation in NIH peer review meetings. The NIH is diligently seeking a new, efficient reimbursement system; however, some changes have been implemented and are effective immediately and through Sept. 30, 2008. Read more.
New Grants Awarded in May
Writing winning grants is tough. We understand the hard work that goes into preparing a proposal and want to make sure that effort doesn’t go unnoticed. Check out your great work—and that of your colleagues—at uc.edu/ucresearch/new_grant_winners.html.
GREEN BITS
The university is working collaboratively with four other major organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area to reduce its carbon footprint. There are several things you can do in labs and offices to improve energy and waste management. Research Update—with the help of Eric Gruenstein, PhD, professor of molecular genetics—provides monthly “greening” tips for research faculty and staff. This month, Gruenstein focuses on instrument and supply catalogs.
Tip #6: Close the Catalogs
We all get scientific instrument and supply catalogs in our mailboxes—some thin, some thick and some so big they don’t even fit in the mailbox but have to sit on a nearby table top. Most arrive unsolicited; many are discarded or, if kept, used rarely or never. Out of curiosity, I just weighed a couple of the larger ones from the catalog shelf in my lab. The Sigma-Aldrich chemicals catalog tipped the scale at 2.3 kilograms, while the Thomas Scientific catalog and several others exceeded the limit of my scale.
So I wondered how many copies of such catalogs can you make out of a tree. A little googling, some estimating and a bit of algebra led to a number of about 300. I’ve got a few dozen catalogs on my lab shelf of which probably half are new each year representing about 5 to 10 percent of one beautiful, 90-foot-tall Douglas fir tree.
Furthermore, the process of making that tree into a catalog is not a clean one. Paper mills are amongst the worst polluters of air, water and land of any industry in our country. They introduce large amounts of toxic chemicals such as toluene, chlorine dioxide, HCl and formaldehyde into the environment.
So here’s what I’ve decided to do. Except for a very small number of catalogs that I really use often, whenever I get one in the mail I’m going to contact the company and ask to be taken off their mailing list. If I need to get something from them, I’ll just go to their Web site instead.
If many of us did this we could save a lot of trees, reduce pollution, free up some shelf space in our labs, and maybe even lower the prices of some of the things we order form those companies. It’s something to think about.
EVENTS
Intensive Grant-Writing Workshop
Presented by Stephen Russell, PhD
Pre-proposal due July 3, 2008
Onsite meeting Aug. 6-7, 2008
Grants due after Jan. 1, 2009
This workshop is free, but participants are required to attend the Write Winning Grants Seminar on May 5, 2008, or must have completed this seminar given in spring 2007. Those chosen to participate are required to submit their grant applications after Jan. 1, 2009.
Apply online
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