RESEARCH

The NASA JSC Office of Education invites proposals to administer Teaching From Space (TFS), located at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. As part of NASA's portfolio of education programs and projects, TFS facilitates and manages NASA education activities that help the Agency achieve its education goals. These activities offer NASA Education unique capabilities and opportunities to involve educators and students through astronaut training, spaceflight missions, on-orbit education activities, future flight platforms and space missions, and a variety of education flight projects. Organizations eligible to respond to this CAN are limited to higher education institutions, non-profit organizations, or consortia of organizations and institutions serving higher education. Notices of Intent to propose are due March 28, 2008, and proposals are due April 28, 2008. Further information about this CAN is available from Edward Pritchard, AE2/Office of Education, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058; E-mail: edward.j.pritchard@nasa.gov or Cynthia McArthur, AE2/Office of Education, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058; E-mail: cynthia.l.mcarthur@nasa.gov.

The Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) Defense Appropriations Act provides $10 million to the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP) to support innovative research to eradicate Ovarian Cancer. This program is administered by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command through the Office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

Detailed descriptions of each of the funding mechanisms, evaluation criteria, and submission requirements can be found in the FY08 OCRP Program Announcements. Each Program Announcement is available electronically for downloading from the Grants.gov website at http://www.grants.gov, the CDMRP website at http://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/ocrp.htm, and the CDMRP eReceipt Website athttps://cdmrp.org.

The Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) Defense Appropriations Act provides $50 million to the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP) to support research that will make significant contributions. This program is administered by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command through the Office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

Detailed descriptions of each of the funding mechanisms, evaluation criteria, and submission requirements can be found in the FY08 PRMRP Program Announcements. Each Program Announcement is available electronically for downloading from the Grants.gov website at http://www.grants.gov, the CDMRP website at http://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/prmrp.htm, and the CDMRP eReceipt Website at https://cdmrp.org.

A new report issued jointly on February 27, 2008 by the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) and the AAU (Association of American Universities) calls on all medical schools and major research universities to develop and implement institutional financial conflicts of interest (COI) policies within the next two years, and contains additional guidances for addressing individual financial COI. For the complete report, go to: http://www.aamc.org/jointcoireport.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on January 17, 2008, on the number and nature of financial conflicts of interest reported to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the extent of NIH’s oversight of those reported financial conflicts of interest. The report found that the NIH Office of Extramural Research could not provide an accurate count of the financial conflicts of interest reports submitted by grantees during the period 2004-2006, and, per policy, information was not collected by the NIH regarding the types of conflicts or details of compliance with regulations to manage, reduce or eliminate the conflicts of interest.

In responding to the OIG report, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni agreed with the findings and supports two of the recommendations: providing greater oversight through targeted site visits and expanded informational outreach, and the need for a new web-based reporting system for NIH staff that will help track reports received by each NIH Institute. NIH does not concur with the recommendation to require more detailed reports from grantee. Dr. Zerhouni argues that the authority for managing financial conflicts of interest resides in and should remain with the grantee institution which can view the financial disclosure in the context of the investigator’s entire research enterprise and make a better assessment of how to manage, reduce or eliminate the financial conflict. Dr. Zerhouni notes that the collection of detailed information as proposed by the OIG would “effectively, if not legally, transfer the locus of that authority …to the Federal Government.”

The OIG report entitled “National Institutes of Health: Conflicts of Interest in Extramural Research,” can be found at:
http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-03-06-00460.pdf.

Proposal to Award - Pre-Award Services
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Crawford Hall, Room 9A

This workshop will cover basic processes involved with speedtype set-up in the Office of Sponsored Projects Administration, including an overview of eURF procedures, proposal submission, award documentation and subcontract agreements.

This seminar will be repeated on April 22 and May 6 to allow more people to attend. Register for one date only.

Online registration is available at: http://ora.ra.cwru.edu/research/orc/education/onlinecalendar.cfm.

Sponsored Projects Accounting is pleased to announce a new tool to assist administrators in reconciling certified effort reports. We are replacing the excel spreadsheets formerly sent to departments/management centers from the Effort Reporting office with a variance report now available on-line via Spiderweb. Once the effort report form has been certified and the monthly pay data uploaded, administrators will be able to see and comment on the variance report. You will now have the ability to add and see all comments regarding an individual’s effort report variance, on-line, in the Comments box provided. Please follow link below for full instructions and as always if you have questions please contact the Effort Reporting Team.

Robin G. Kramer, Specialist
rgk@case.edu
368-5942

Jim Gannon
james.gannon@case.edu
368-3569

http://ora.ra.cwru.edu/ospa/effort/index.cfm