Inside this Issue
- Mark your calendars for Research Administrator Day 2024, a message from Dr. Gary Pierzynski.
- The FY25 Internal Grants Program Request for Grad and Undergrad proposals is now available.
- OSP and GDSU have released guidance on mileage transactions on sponsored grants.
- Review the updated SPO & GDSU timelines to ensure continuity and support for your projects.
Funding Opportunties
As funding opportunities are announced we will compile a full list on our website. The web page will be updated periodically as new opportunities are discovered.
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EDU Core Research (ECR:Core)
ECR:Core invites proposals for fundamental research that contributes to the general, explanatory knowledge that underlies STEM education in Research on STEM Learning & Learning Environments, on Broadening Participation in STEM fields, and on STEM Workforce Development. Deadline: October 3, 2023 -
North Central Region SARE
The North Central Region SARE (NCR-SARE) Research and Education (R&E) Grant Program is a competitive grant program for researchers and educators involved in projects that explore and promote environmentally sound, economically viable, and socially responsible food/fiber systems.
Deadline: October 10, 2024
View All Funding Opportunities
Happy Research Administrator Day!
Dr. Gary Pierzynski, Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Education
The time of year has come again to celebrate our research administrators for their countless contributions to the CFAES Research Enterprise. Research Administrators often work in the background, monitoring the many pieces that keep our research engine going.
From prospect research to proposal development down to post-award oversight, research administrators have a hand in every component of the sponsored project lifecycle. Their expertise and dedication to the trade helps streamline the administrative aspects of research, enabling our Principal Investigators to spend more time in their science. Through their efforts, CFAES research administrators have increased the total amount and competitiveness of externally funded research projects.
On September 25, we invite you to join us in extending a heartfelt appreciation to our research administration staff. Their unwavering dedication upholds our principles of research integrity and compliance, anchoring us as a world-renowned research institution.
Let’s take a moment to acknowledge our research administrators for their exceptional work and contributions via a shoutout on Your Plan for Health or by highlighting your admin professionals on social media using #ResearchAdministratorDay.
Spotlight
Help with Creating Consultant Agreements
Need help creating consultant agreements? Please contact your grant manager. Guidelines for creating the agreements and how consultants request payment are available.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
An Overview of Intellectual Property
This presentation is intended for faculty, staff, and students interested in learning how to protect their ideas in the marketplace.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
Introduction to Patent Searching
Ready to learn the basics of patent searching? Check out this 60-minute introductory presentation for faculty, staff, and students.From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
FY25 CFAES IGP student RFP Now Available!
Alex Maddox, CFAES IGP Coordinator
The CFAES Office for Research and Graduate Education (R&GE) is pleased to announce the FY 2025 Internal Grants Program (IGP) Request for Graduate and Undergraduate proposals. Please be sure to review the RFP and application templates for the full list of proposal requirements.
Graduate Student Competition
Graduate Student IGP Awards are intended to accomplish the following objectives:
- Provide graduate students with an opportunity to gain experience with research methods in food, agriculture, environmental sciences, human ecology and related social sciences.
- Introduce graduate students to the grant-writing and peer-review processes.
- Stimulate faculty-graduate student collaborations and mentoring of graduate students by CFAES faculty
To be eligible for this program, students must:
- Be enrolled throughout the duration of the project as a graduate student in one of the following colleges at Ohio State: CFAES, Education and Human Ecology or Veterinary Medicine.
- Have Primary Faculty advisor with a CFAES appointment.
- Be in good academic standing, have at least nine months left in their program and not plan to graduate prior to December 2026.
- Students are eligible to receive only one grant every three years.
Undergraduate Student Competition
Undergraduate Student IGP Awards are intended to accomplish the following objectives:
- Provide undergraduate students with an opportunity to gain experience with research methods in food, agriculture, environmental sciences, human ecology and related social sciences.
- Stimulate faculty-undergraduate student collaborations and mentoring of students by CFAES faculty.
- Help identify students who have the potential for graduate school and research careers.
To be eligible for this program, students must:
- Be enrolled through the duration of the project as a student in CFAES.
- Have primary faculty advisor with a CFAES appointment
- Be in good academic standing.
- Have completed the first year of studies.
- Students are eligible to receive only one undergraduate grant
Deadlines
Graduate proposals: Friday, December 6th, 2024 via the Graduate Student Submission Portal.
Undergraduate proposals: Friday, December 6th, 2024 via the Undergraduate Student Submission Portal.
*All proposals are due by 5:00 p.m. EST on the deadline date.
Learn More
Interested in learning more about the Internal Grants Program (IGP) for graduate and undergraduate students? Please visit the CFAES website for an informational video. The video will introduce you to the different student programs, eligibility requirements, submission portal, and application and review processes. Please direct all questions to CFAES-IGP@osu.edu or visit go.osu.edu/cfaes-igp.
In the News
R&GE Visit to Central State University
On August 7, a group of faculty and staff from The Ohio State University engaged in a full day of collaborative activities and discussions at Central State University (CSU). The day began with a continental breakfast at the Joshua I. Smith Center for Education and Natural Sciences, followed with a warm welcome from Research Leadership, including Dr. Shafiqur Rahman (CSU) and Dr. Gary Pierzynski (OSU). The morning session featured a series of flash talks where OSU and CSU faculty shared their research focus areas, facilities, and equipment, to spur collaborations with one another.
After a networking lunch, the afternoon was dedicated to exploring various research labs and projects at Central State. Some highlights included presentations on precision agriculture innovations from Dr. Rajveer Dhillon, a lesson on nutrigenomics with Dr. Pratibha Gupta, and a presentation at the corn lab with Drs. Luke Farno and Mark Campbell. The day concluded with a tour of their new research facility under construction and an aquaponics demonstration led by Drs. Folck and Korir.
Before departure, attendees stated they were impressed with the cutting-edge research facilities being developed at Central State, and the number of opportunities for undergraduate student research at the institution. This visit fostered valuable exchanges and set the stage for future collaborative efforts between the two universities. If you would like to be a part of future visits or collaborations with Central State, please contact the CFAES Office for Research and Graduate Education.
NSF-Funded Center to Drive Development of US Natural Rubber Industry
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $26 million in federal funding for the “Transformation of American Rubber through Domestic Innovation for Supply Security” (TARDISS) Engineering Research Center (ERC) located on our CFAES Wooster campus. As PI, Judit Puskas will lead the center along with its director, Ajay Shah.
From The Ohio State News on 8/21/2024
Join 9/12 Info Session on the NSF Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator Funding Opportunity
The NSF Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator (R2I2) funding opportunity will support collaborative, community-engaged initiatives to develop and implement scalable solutions to climate-related challenges by translating recent research advancements in climate and Earth system science into practical applications. Join the research development in the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge for a virtual information to learn more about the opportunity on September 12 at noon. Learn more and register today.
From an email from the Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK) on 8/27/2024
Faculty Pathways - Cultivating Excellence Across the Academic Journey
Faculty Pathways is a comprehensive and innovative faculty development program designed to equip educators with the necessary tools, knowledge and support to excel in their roles at The Ohio State University. The goal is to nurture a culture of continuous learning and foster a community of practice that enhances faculty members’ personal and professional lives. Fall 2024 Sessions include:
- Planning and Launching Your Career at Ohio State | September 10, 12:00-1:00 PM
- Strategic Approach to Service in Higher Education | October 16, 12:00-1:00 PM
- Lunch & Learn: Navigating Wellness for Faculty Excellence | November 1, 12:00-1:00 PM
- Weekly Writing Retreat | November 7, 14, 21, 10:00AM - 12:00 PM
From The Ohio State News On Campus Headlines on 8/26/2024
Salary/Effort Appointments on Grants
As of July 1, payroll accounting adjustments (PAAs) are no longer being processed for past certification periods. Once certified, effort will be considered final. PAAs will not be processed for already certified effort.
PAAs must be submitted before effort certification documents are issued or corrected during the certification process. If effort for a past period isn’t certified, it is an unallowable cost. PAAs for past periods or effort already certified will be denied and uncertified effort billed back to the investigator’s department, consistent with processes for all unallowable expenditures.
If you have personnel that need assigned to new or continuing grants, contact your department fiscal staff for assistance. You can also contact your grants manager with questions about project staffing and grant budget concerns. Please do this in advance of the Service Center deadlines noted below – Please notify your Grant Manager if any retroactive personnel assignments are necessary.
Bi-weekly paid employees: September 10, September 24 | Monthly paid employees: September 17
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders & The Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge
Nominations Now Open for CFAES Faculty and Staff Awards
The nomination window for the 2024-2025 College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences faculty and staff awards is open through November 29, 2024. Criteria and nomination requirements for all awards, past recipients, and the link to submit nominations can be found at go.osu.edu/cfaesawardnominations.
From the CFAES News on 8-28-2024
Mileage Transactions on Sponsored Grants
After a review of mileage transactions on sponsored grants, the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) has determined that university-owned vehicles should not bill “mileage” rates to grants. Instead, departments should charge actual expenses, such as fuel and maintenance. Mileage rates encompass costs that fall under Facilities & Administrative (F&A) expenses and/or unallowable costs. Billing grants for mileage rates on university-owned vehicles risks duplicating expenses and overcharging sponsors. It is crucial for the university to consistently apply the same expense treatment across all extramural funding sources, regardless of sponsor type, in accordance with 2 CFR 200.403. Please note, this change does not affect the mileage rates for personal vehicle use on grants.”
What does this mean for our budgeting purposes? First, we need to ask the question if there will be a personal vehicle or a fleet vehicle used. If a personal vehicle is used, we may charge mileage, but if a fleet vehicle is used we need to include those costs as “fuel/maintenance expenses”. Please contact Pam Schlegel.33 or Shannon Hollis.69 with any questions.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
Transactions Added to PI Weekly Confirmation Email
Currently, Purchase Requisitions, Spend Authorizations, Non-PO Invoices, Expense Reports without Spend Authorizations, and Misc. Payment Requests are reported on the weekly grant transaction confirmation email sent out to Principal Investigators (PI) for their relevant Grants. This weekly reporting helps to ensure that our PIs can review all non-personnel charges against their Grants.
Please review this email each week and if you see an expense that doesn’t make sense to you, please reach out to your project team member who made the request, your grant manager, or fiscal person and they can make sure that the expense was correctly entered into the system. Also, if you think that an expense should have posted and you didn’t get an email, please follow up with the person you thought would be entering the request to see if it was entered and proceed from there. You only receive an email if expenses posted the previous week.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
SPO & GDSU Timelines
As previously communicated, we are currently facing some staffing challenges within the CFAES Sponsored Program Officers (SPOs). OSP is actively working to fill the open SPO positions. Please review the updated timeline to ensure continuity and support for your projects from OSP and GDSU.
| SPO Timeline | GDSU Timeline | |
| Notification | 2 weeks prior to proposal due date (unless subawards are included and three weeks notification is required. | 3 weeks prior to proposal due date by completing the GDSU Request Form |
| Budget Review (Final) | 3 business days before proposal due date | Budget in final stage (including subawards) 1 week before proposal due date |
| EPA-005 | Prior to proposal submission | As soon as final budget and justification are approved |
| Final Proposal Review | 1 business day before proposal due date | 3 business days before proposal due date to upload into submission system |
*Business day definition – Monday-Friday prior to 5PM EST. Weekends are not considered business days.
*Extenuating circumstances will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Bayh-Dole Certification Reminder
Ohio State researchers – faculty, staff and students – that currently work on federal grants need to sign an agreement stating that any intellectual property that comes out of federally sponsored research is assigned to Ohio State. Those that fall under this requirement only need to sign the form one time. Please share this requirement with all new project staff and students. More information and the link to sign the form can be found at the link below on the ERIK website. The percentage of CFAES researchers that have signed this document is 85% - so we are getting there but 100% is our goal.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
Upcoming NIFA webinars
9/9/24 | 1:00 PM EDT, Leveraging Extension and University Engagement
Join USDA NIFA for a webinar series highlighting opportunities and challenges of transdisciplinary approaches within agricultural research.
9/18/24 | 3:00 PM EDT, Rapid Response to Extreme Weather Events Across Food and Agriculture Systems
This program area priority is designed to rapidly identify and implement strategies to protect the nation’s food and agricultural supply chains and the people who support them during & after extreme weather events.
9/24/24 | 1:30 PM EDT, Food /Nutrition Security: Rapid Response During Extreme Weather Events
Explore the intersection of climate change and food and nutrition insecurity. NIFA staff will first explain NIFA’s relatively new rapid response funding mechanism designed to better explore these intersections.
9/27/24 | 2:00 PM EDT, Technical Assistance: Food & Agricultural Non-Formal Education RFA
NIFA staff is hosting a technical assistance webinar to discuss the Food and Agricultural Non-Formal Education (FANE) RFA.
From USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Daily Digest Bulletin 8/28/2024
Graduate Student Summer Tuition Benefit Update
If graduate students decide to take classes in the summer and not work on a grant, they have the right to have their tuition paid if they had a 50% appointment during the fall and spring semesters. However, student tuition can’t be paid from a grant if the student isn’t working on the grant AND the PI can’t tell a student that they can’t sign up for courses. The question is who would pay for that summer tuition. Currently, the college/ departments don’t have money to pay tuition for summer, so the cost will be the responsibility of the PI.
In the original policy, it stated that master’s and pre-candidacy students were required to enroll in four credit hours and three credit hours for post-candidacy students during summer, in order to be eligible for this unique summer tuition benefit. Beginning this summer, the grad school has reduced this minimum to 0.5 credit hours, which virtually eliminates the credit hour requirement. This reduction in credit hours will allow more students (including post-candidacy students) to take advantage of this summer-only benefit without having the onus of enrolling in superfluous credit hours in order to meet an enrollment requirement. Please be aware that students currently hired as a GA during the summer, completing a graduate examination, and/or graduating during the summer term will still need to meet the enrollment requirements (four for pre-candidacy and master’s students and three for post-candidacy).
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
Introduction to the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy
On September 5 from 2:00-3:30 PM, join the Research Commons for an informational session which will provide an introduction to the policy, an overview of tools and resources provided by Ohio State to help you, and preliminary feedback from select Institutes and Centers about submitted plans.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
PIs Can Give Access to Grants in the PI Portal
If you would like one of your project staff to access a specific grant in the PI Portal to review budget items and help manage remaining spending on the grant, you can provide access by:
- Login to PI Portal.
- Click on the Access Controls tab. To grant access to your PI Portal view, type the designee's name in the box on the left hand side of the screen.
- To add an individual to only a specific grant(s), pull up the grant(s) you wish to share. Click on the Demographics tab then click Add Grant Administrator.
From the EHE ORIC News, Updates, & Reminders – 8/21/24
Recent Awards
- Edward Nangle, David Gardner, Dominic Petrella – ATI, $58,081: Evaluating the use of soy flour as an alternative mineral nutrient source on high cut turfgrasses including golf courses, sportsfields and home lawns, Indiana Soybean Alliance
- Robin Stone, Nicole Debose – OSU Extension, $290,000: Youth advocacy and leadership coalition 2024, Cuyahoga County of Ohio
- Horacio Lopez- Nicora – Plant Path, $75,000: Decoding soybean plant defense, Ohio Soybean Council
- Van Haden – ATI, Horacio Lopez Nicora – Plant Path, $40,454: Evaluation of the Dirt Dryer for effects on soil and plant health, weed pressure, and communities of soilborne pathogens and nematodes, Propane Education and Research Council
- Talita Resende – Animal Sciences, Jacqueline Nolting – Vet Med, $146,290: PorkProspect: Nurturing talent for a sustainable swine industry, NPB project swine education & outreach professionals – 2024, National Pork Board
- Logan Minter – OSU South Centers, $49,529: Expanding opportunities of season-long grow covers in cucurbit production using native pollinators, University of Minnesota
- Jamie Strange – ENT, $110,000: Establishment of captive rearing facilities for Bombus affinis, US Fish and Wildlife Service
- Yael Vodovotz – FST, $50,000: Portable unit food fermenter (PUFF) team, BioMADE
- Anne Fitzpatrick – AEDE, $68,454: Improving childcare quality through social franchising, Kidogo Early Years
- Sami Khanal – FABE, Pierce Paul – Plant Path, $166,800: Elucidating the epidemiology, risk of seed transmission, and management of High Plains wheat mosaic and wheat streak mosaic viruses to facilitate export of sweet corn seed to Chile and New Zealand, Washington State University
- Scott Kenney, Aradhya Gourapura – CFAH, $400,571: Reversion to virulence studies for African swine fever vaccines, USDA Agricultural Research Service