NIH: Use it or lose it

In a November 30 announcement about its closeout policies, NIH urges grantees to spend their awards in a timely fashion:

"NIH will strictly enforce its closeout policies. When recipients fail to submit timely reports, NIH will initiate unilateral closeout. It is important to note that for financial closeout, if a recipient fails to submit a final expenditure FFR, HHS policy directs NIH to close the grant using the last accepted Federal Cash Transaction Report’s cash drawdown amount. This could be considered a debt or result in disallowed costs.  In addition, failure to correct recurring reporting problems may cause NIH to take one or more actions that may include, but are not limited to, corrective actions, withholding of further awards, suspension or termination."

NSF award rates and more

The National Science Foundation has released its annual report on merit review, which includes award rates by program, by investigator characteristics and other information. You can get a copy of the document, "Report to the National Science Board on the National Science Foundation's Merit Review Process Fiscal Year 2016" here.

Want your NIH funds promptly? Do your public access diligence

The National Institutes of Health has guidelines for making grantee publications publicly accessible. If you don't meet those guidelines, future funding can be delayed. Read a summary of the guidelines here.

NSF report: Quotation marks & plagiarism

Some faculty, including full professors, don't understand how to provide proper attribution to others in their writing.

That was one of the findings of a report on training in the responsible conduct of research on campuses across the nation conducted by the National Science Foundation's Inspector General. Responsible conduct of research, or RCR, as it's known in the field, is the ethical practice of science. It covers all aspects of scientific inquiry, including publication

The report, "OIG Review of Institutions' Implementation of NSF's Responsible Conduct of Research Requirements," states that faculty, rather than students, were the subjects of 96 percent of the plagiarism cases in which NSF made a finding of research misconduct from FY2012-2016. Most of them stated they "were unaware that using someone else's words verbatim required quotation marks."

NSF in the Valley of the Sun in November

The National Science Foundation will present its Fall Grants Conference Nov. 13-14 in Phoenix, AZ. Details are available  here. If you can't make the trip, you can watch a live webcast of the event from your rain-surrounded office.

NIH clinical trials policy changes

Check out the National Institutes of Health's policy changes changes regarding human subjects research and clinical trials. The definition of clinical trials is broader, new forms will be rolled out and policies regarding clinical trials are being modified.

NEH funding database

Want to know what projects the National Endowment for the Humanities has funded? Search its database.

New NIH videos on how to apply

The National Institutes of Health website has four new video tutorials on how to apply for a grant. They cover registering with its online submission system, writing a proposal and submitting your application. Check them out here.

More tales of the NSF OIG

Research misconduct -- primarily plagiarism and data falsification -- figure prominently in the latest Semiannual Report to Congress by the National Science Foundation's Office of the Inspector General. Those investigated included a full professor, assistant professors and graduate students. The full report is available here.

Federal agency public access plans

All federal agencies must have a public access plan that sets out requirements for the sharing of data collected from and scholarly articles generated by funded research. However, the details vary from agency to agency. Click here for a list of current agency public access plans.

NIH Confidential

The entire proposal review process at the National Institutes of Health should be confidential, yet breaches sometimes occur. This NIH blog post discusses situations to avoid, which include the exchange of even seemingly trivial information.

NIH grant seminar October in Baltimore

The National Institutes of Health plans a seminar on program funding and grant administration for Oct. 25-27 in Baltimore. Click here for details.

NSF Day in Wyoming

Grab your ten-gallon hat and head to the Cowboy State for NSF Day May 3 at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. Details are available here.

The skinny on NSF's public access policy

Not sure what you need to do with those journal articles that result from your National Science Foundation grants? What about the data you collected. The agency has posted FAQs to address most every matter.

NSF Day in Chapel Hill

Spring is beautiful in Chapel Hill -- what a great time for NSF Day in the Tar Heel State! Get the details here.

Animal, vegetable, mineral: Scientific collections

We have all heard about management plans for electronic data gathered in scientific research. Efforts are under way to make physical objects available for scientific study as well. The Registry of U.S. Federal Scientific Collections has details.

PDF attachments for NIH: Color me informed

The National Institutes of Health issued a new policy for text in PDF attachments. The Arial, Georgia Helvetica and Palatino Linotype fonts acceptable; applicants are no longer restricted to black text. Check out the policy for details.

NSF: The rules they are a-changin'

Sign up for a webinar that will review significant changes to the National Science Foundation's Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG). The event is scheduled for 1 to 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19. Learn about updates to requirements for letters of intent, collaborators, cover sheets and other matters that will affect proposals submitted Jan. 30, 2017 and thereafter.