Sponsored Research Services RIT Researcher News

The third round of the New York State Consolidated Funding Application, or CFA, includes $750 million in grants, tax credits and other incentives from 26 programs in 13 state agencies.  The overarching aim of the CFA is to improve New York State's business climate and expand economic growth.

If your research interests tie with regional economic development in any way, you may want to explore the programs available through the CFA.  RIT has two information sessions scheduled:

Tuesday, June 18^th, CIMS 2120 from 2:00 – 3:30 pm and

Thursday, June 20^th, Bamboo Room (Campus Life Center) from 10:00 – 11:30 am

If you are unable to attend these, a series of workshops presented by the Regional Economic Development Councils is posted at http://regionalcouncils.ny.gov/genericcfa/2013-cfa-workshops.

RIT Internal Review.  Some of the individual programs limit the number of proposals RIT may submit, some have complex eligibility rules, and many involve cost sharing.  For these and other reasons,  proposals to any CFA program will require prior RIT review and approval. 

If you are considering a proposal through the CFA, please research available programs by attending one of the sessions above and exploring the CFA resource manual and application guide at http://regionalcouncils.ny.gov/.

Internal review will be based on a concept paper.  Provide a one page description of your idea with the following information: a) the CFA program(s) you wish to apply to, b) a brief description of the proposed project, and c) an estimated budget with sources of cost sharing or leveraged funds if required and d) if RIT will be the lead organization or subawardee on a collaborative proposal.  Applicants are encouraged to discuss their ideas with the Office of Government and Community Relations (Debbie Stendardi and Meredith Smith) and Sponsored Research Services (Brian Duddy and David Bond) well in advance of the concept paper deadline.

Concept papers are due to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by 5:00 p.m. on July 8.  Concept papers will be reviewed for eligibility, program limits, technical merit, and fitness with agency priorities.  Applicants will be notified of any restrictions or concerns by July 15.

Proposal Requirements Review.  The CFA proposal submission portal features a series of administrative screening and eligibility questions.  Applicants will need to schedule a proposal requirements review session with Brian Duddy in SRS to review the information requirements for the given program.  These sessions must be completed prior to 5:00 p.m. on July 26. 

Proposal Upload.  Additional sessions may be necessary depending on the particular information required by the agency sponsor.  Applicants may need additional scheduled time with Brian during the week of July 29 to August 2.

Proposal Routing Forms must be completed and signed by the Vice President of Research prior to proposal submission to New York State. 

LMI is a not-for-profit strategic consulting firm serving the federal government.  Through the LMI Academic Partnerships program, LMI seeks to conduct sponsored research with university partners that supports LMI’s mission of providing independent analysis and practical solutions to the challenges facing government managers.

The objective of this FY2014 University Proposal Solicitation is to receive research proposals that investigate

• item serialization,
• building cyber response teams,
• renewable energy cyber security,
• scheduling algorithms for service organizations,
• quantitative methods for emergency management,
• geospatial healthcare models,
• live data agent-based models,
• machine learning in agent-based models, and
• visualization of high-dimensional data.

RIT may submit up to a maximum of three (3) proposals. If you are interested in applying, request the LMI solicitation from This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and communicate your interest with the Intent to Submit form on the Forms and Agreements page.  Return forms to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by June 21, 2013.

Selected proposals from RIT must be submitted together by July 15, 2013.

New York State has announced the resources available through the consolidated funding application (CFA) process for 2013.  Overall, $750 million in grants, tax credits and other incentives is available through 26 programs across 13 state agencies in this round.  The overarching aim of the CFA is to improve New York State's business climate and expand economic growth.

RIT is eligible for several programs in the CFA.  If you plan on applying to any of these programs, please plan to attend one of two information sessions scheduled for

Tuesday, June 18^th, CIMS 2120 from 2:00 – 3:30 pm

or

Thursday, June 20^th, Bamboo Room (Campus Life Center) from 10:00 – 11:30 am

Proposals to any CFA program will require prior RIT review and approval.  The CFA resource manual and application guide are published at http://regionalcouncils.ny.gov/.

Sponsors of all types are increasingly limiting the number of submissions an organization may make to many programs.  This helps the sponsor manage workflow, but places an additional responsibility on the submitting organization.  The articles below describe processes for the internal review and approval of certain limited submission programs in which RIT participates.  For programs not described below, please use the Intent to Submit Form on the Forms and Agreements page.

The National Science Foundation is using a new approach to identify high risk awardees.   In its 2013 plan of work, the NSF Office of Inspector General (OIG) describes its use of “data analytics” to identify high risk grantees to be selected for audit.

This approach uses multiple data sources and enables examination of 100 per cent of transactions, revealing anomalies that indicate possible unallowable or unreasonable expenditures. The data sources NSF will use include awarded proposals, expense reports, cash draw-downs, annual single audits (aka A-133 Audits), information in USAspending.gov (including data submitted quarterly for ARRA awards), 990 tax returns (GuideStar) and others.

The data analytics approach increases the OIG’s efficiency in identifying risk at all stages of awards. This includes the following:

Pre-Award Risks

•       Inflated budgets
•       Conflict of interests amongst proposal reviewers

Post-Award Risks

•       Unusual burn rates (e.g. expenditures for equipment at the end of an award)
•       Excess cash on hand
•       Large expenditures during the last 3 months for an award
•       Large expenditures immediately following the end of the award
•       Financial progress that lags or exceeds programmatic progress
•       Missing, late, or inadequate progress reports
•       Multiple post-close-out financial adjustments

How does this change affect the Principal Investigator?

Principal investigators and anyone associated with managing finances for sponsored programs need to ensure due diligence at all phases of the proposal and award life cycle.  NSF's new approach does not require and new actions or procedures, but it does highlight the importance of certain best practices, including

•       Thorough and accurate budget planning and justification using RIT’s budget template,
•       Timely proposal development and review by department and college signatories,
•       Careful review of monthly grant statements to ensure all charges are allocated timely and accurately and that you understand the spending rate,
•       Submission of all required reports in a timely and accurate fashion,
•       Monitoring project activities and expenses to ensure a reasonable burn rate, and
•       Communicating with Sponsored Research Services and Sponsored Programs Accounting staff on issues of concern.

Note on drawing NSF funds

NSF has also recently announced that all awards made will be promptly closed 90 days after the award end date. Since RIT draws funds in arrears, this means that all transactions should be properly and timely recorded on the award by the 60^th day following the award’s end date.

If you have any questions about anything above, feel free to contact your SPA or SRS representative.

The Office of the Vice President for Research in collaboration with the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion are pleased to announce the RIT Post Doctoral Matching Fund for Inclusive Excellence.

Eligible Participants: All RIT Organizational Units

Executive Summary: We will provide matching funds to support the hiring of new post-doctoral associates. Proposals to obtain these matching funds can be made to the Office of the Vice President for Research and will be evaluated on the basis of the quality of the candidate, their proposed area of research, support from the host unit, and institutional research priorities. Preference in these awards will be given to AALANA candidates.

Award Amounts: A one-to-one match of up to $50K/position for a 12-month period. Continuation for a second year is possible, pending availability of funding and satisfactory performance.

Expiration Date: Sept. 1, 2013

Cost Matching: 1 to 1 cost match required.

Proposal Length: The proposals should be no more than 4 pages in length using 12 pt. Times New Roman.

Proposal Guidelines:

Executive Summary (1-page): This is a summary of anticipated plan of work for the candidate, written in plain business English and explaining how this particular position will fit into the larger research goals of the unit and the institution

Candidate CV (2-pages): Following NSF CV guidelines.

Budget (1-page): Should include a detailed breakdown (e.g., candidate salary, benefits, ITS, travel, etc.) for both the requested funds and cost match. Please include the source of the matching funding, including necessary approvals, for verification. Also include any other in-kind forms of support that will be offered to the candidate.

Proposal Submission: Send proposals with completed Proposal Routing Forms to Dan Goebert, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  Proposals will be evaluated on a rolling basis and notification of awards will be made within 1-month of receipt.

The chief goal of WIDER is to transform institutions of higher education into supportive environments for STEM faculty members to substantially increase their use of evidence-based teaching and learning practices. These practices should serve to increase persistence in STEM and contribute to the goal of producing 1 million additional STEM graduates. In particular, WIDER seeks this this transformation for high enrollment, lower division courses required for many STEM majors and taken by many other students to fulfill general education distribution requirements.

Broadly defined, effective STEM teaching and learning are not only instructional practices in traditional learning environments, but also modern laboratory methods and field research, proven distance education methods (or hybrid designs incorporating both face-to-face and distance methods), and improved approaches to motivating student interest in STEM. In all cases, the primary goal of wider is to increase substantially the scale of these improvements within and across the higher education sector in order to accomplish the following:

1. Improved student learning;
2. Increased numbers of students choosing STEM majors, particularly from demographic groups underrepresented in STEM;
3. Improved retention in the first two years of undergraduate study and to graduation of all STEM majors.

WIDER grants may be used to 1) begin institutional planning efforts; 2) support implementation efforts for evidence-based teaching and learning practices and; 3) for research on how to increase the importance placed on evidence-based practices in institutional strategic planning and faculty rewards.

An estimated 30-50 awards will be made for standard or continuing grants in 4 tracks:

1. Planning grants (up to 20 awards)
2. Institutional implementation grants (up to 12 awards)
3. Community implementation grants (up to 12 awards)
4. Research grants (up to 10 awards)

Limitations on Proposals per Organization: An organization may submit only one Planning or one Institutional Implementation proposal for a given deadline. There are no restrictions on the number of Community Implementation or Research proposals that an individual or organization may submit.

Faculty interested in submitting a Planning or Institutional Implementation proposal should submit a 1 page project summary, including the project’s intellectual merit and broader impacts, to David Bond at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by May 10, 2013.

Office of the Vice President for Research
Call for Proposals

Eligible Participants:  All Faculty

Executive Summary: We are seeking proposals from faculty to revise and re-submit any proposal submitted within the last year that received positive reviews but was not funded.   We recognize that statistically the probability of funding increases dramatically with revision and resubmission for almost every sponsoring organization. We will provide resources for faculty to fully address the feedback from these unsuccessful proposals.  To be funded under this program, faculty must clearly summarize the reasons they believe they were not funded, what changes to the proposal are planned, what associated additional work may be required, and what program(s) they will be re-submitting to.  Additional consideration will be given to revisions that may result in multiple proposals to multiple funding opportunities.  Any sponsoring organizations are acceptable (i.e., federal or state agencies, foundations, corporations, etc.). 

Abstracts come in a variety of flavors.  Journal articles, book proposals, dissertations and other works generally require some form of abstract.  Research proposals may require two different types - a technical abstract for the sponsor, and a plain language abstract for public consumption.  RIT's Proposal Routing Form requires a brief, non-technical abstract, which serves a number of purposes, which are generally beneficial to the investigator or team.

If you are a researcher, the abstract on the Proposal Routing Form may be the last thing on your mind as you race toward the proposal deadline.  Let's pause and consider the merits of a good, plain language abstract on your PRF:

RIT is a member of the Universities Space Research Association, an independent, not-for-profit corporation with the mission of advancing space-related sciences.  USRA facilitates collaboration with universities and government agencies in space-related research and education.  USRA operates a Research Opportunities Program to connect with individuals at member institutions on research opportunities.  These include needs within the USRA, emerging collaborative opportunities, and notices for student employment opportunities.  

Interested individuals are encouraged to sign up for USRA Research Opportunity Notices at http://www.researchopps.usra.edu/.