Overview

The Office of Grant Support (OGS) provides pre-award administrative assistance to the entire Albert Einstein College of Medicine community. Our goal is to enable faculty scholars to submit competitive grant proposals and to successfully manage all subsequent non-financial responsibilities of the award, resubmission, and renewal processes.

Useful Resources

Cayuse Funding Opportunities Forms Grants Corners

The OGS can assist with:

Funding opportunity identification
Proposal guidelines (e.g. eligibility, forms, institutional data)
NIH policies, procedures, and jargon
Grantsmanship
Awards Committee nominations (for limited submission programs)

Required registrations for electronic application submissions
Use of Cayuse 424/SP (electronic grant application resource)
Submission of Non-competing applications/Just-in-Time/Supplemental Materials
Communications with grant-making agencies

Grants Corners

Grant Lifecycle

The grants lifecycle is split into two sections, commonly known as Pre-Award (or proposal phase) and Post-Award (or award phase).

Learn More about the Process

Flash News

Weekly NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices

To be announced.

OGS Workshops

December 2024 (by invitation only)

In-person Cayuse training session

OGS organizes in-person Cayuse training sessions on a monthly basis in the library training room. This hands-on training session is open to invitation only. Our Cayuse Training has been revamped. It involves switching between the new OGS website and the Cayuse Test environment. Access to the Cayuse Test environment will be granted to the participants. The OGS team will be present to answer any questions that may arise during the training session. Our goal with these small training sessions is to increase dialogue and situational questions. To attend the in-person training in April, please send your email request to OGS@einsteinmed.edu.

NIH Notice for eRA commons ID validation change from warning to error

To All Research Administrators:

The NIH salary cap has been increased from $212,100 to $221,900 effective January 1, 2024 Guidance on Salary Limitation for Grants and Cooperative Agreements FY 2024.

The new salary cap of $221,900 should now be used, when appropriate, for all new and non-competing proposals to federal agencies that mandate the NIH cap.

For awarded federal grants and contracts, the $221,900 salary cap should be applied to all existing grants. However, we do not want to create a disruptive process. Therefore, at your earliest convenience, please process an EPAF with the new salary cap for the next pay period.

Attached is the updated salary cap template.

Foreign Components

The Office of Grant Support (OGS) and Research Finance (RF) have been in collaboration to address the changing landscape and compliance requirements related to the establishment of planned federal foreign subawards. This is in response to NOT-OD-23-182.

As many of you are aware, NOT-OD-23-182, outlines the terms and requirements that all prime and subsites must agree to establish a subaward. As an institution, Albert Einstein College of Medicine must implement new procedures to ensure compliance at time of application and award.

Pre-Award changes for all grant applications with foreign components:

During proposal planning when PIs, department administrators and study teams are communicating concerning the required sub documents (ie. Budget, budget justification, F&A agreement, signed SOI, etc.) they will need to share that a Letter of Support (LOS) is also required for submission. This letter must be signed by both the foreign site PI and their institutional official. The letter will also need to include specific language that will meet the compliance requirement. The required language to provide the subsite is below:

We confirm that all appropriate programmatic and administrative personnel involved in this application are aware of the prime awarding agency's policies, agree to accept the obligation to comply with award terms, conditions, and certifications, and are prepared to establish the necessary inter-institutional agreement consistent with those policies.

As outlined in NOT-OD-23-182, we will provide access to copies of all lab notebooks, all data, and all documentation that support the research outcomes to the primary recipient no less than once per year, in alignment with the timing requirements for Research Progress Report submission.

This language must appear in the letter of support (LOS) and the LOS must also be included in the application.
OGS will be utilizing the “Flag” feature of Cayuse to identify all proposals that have a foreign component. This flag can also be utilized by the department administrators when they create the proposals. The flag is “Grant with Foreign Component.” This information will be helpful in our metrics and reporting but has no impact on the application.

Post-Award changes for all awards with foreign components:

Amendments on current foreign agreements will be modified and sent out to all Foreign Subs for signatures
Attestations to the PI in accordance with revised policy and requirements will be sent and tracked.
Revision of Outgoing subcontract template to foreign subcontractors.

The Grants.gov Program Management Office (PMO) schedules system-wide software releases to bring its users new features and fixes. During these releases, downtime will be scheduled to deploy new enhancements. The PMO also performs scheduled maintenance on its databases and Websites in order to provide enhanced IT security and increased network reliability. The Grants.gov Calendar lists anticipated dates for both system-wide enhancements and scheduled downtimes for system maintenance.

For NIH submissions: In the SF424RR, page 2, #14, the Division should be: Albert Einstein College of Medicine. We have new instructions from the eRA commons helpdesk that this is needed in order for the PI Department to populate in eRA Commons and the NIH RePORTER.
Proposal Central submissions: Select Indranil Basu as Grants Officer (Signing Official, Authorized Institution Official Representative), Suzanne Locke as Fiscal Officer and Janis Paradiso as Technology Transfer Officer.
OGS is organizing an in-person Cayuse training session for the DAs on a monthly basis in the library training room. This small group hands-on training session is by invitation only. Please send your email request to OGS@einsteinmed.edu if you would like to participate.
For awarded continuations of incoming subcontracts, foundations, associations, and industry projects, it is no longer required to create an SP proposal record. The RF Award set up template will be revised to ask for the Cayuse project number (A23-XXXX). The RF Award Set-up team will proceed with their review and inputting the award in Cayuse SP & Banner. This does NOT include NIH RPPRs and non-NIH continuations where submission to the sponsor is needed after OGS review.
- Please find here the RPPR routing process in eRA Commons.
Please use the revised PI Certification form if the PIs choose not to certify the proposal directly in Cayuse SP.

Message from the Director

Hello,

In this February edition of the newsletter, I will provide details on our institutional submissions, office updates, sponsor updates, internal forms changes, system updates and proposal reminders.

Application Breakdown

Applications numbers have been analyzed for January 1 – February 28, 2025. OGS has already reviewed 235 applications (196 New, 10 Renewal, 23 Resubmission, 6 Supplement). The total cost request is $284,614,036. These applications were submitted by 46 Departments/Divisions across the institution. The funding breakdown: 44% Federal prime, 30% Federal and Non-Federal subcontracts, 20% Non-Federal prime, 4% Industry, and >1% New York State and >1% International. We are currently reviewing 11 applications for the remainder of February deadlines. We have 28 applications under review for March 5^th NIH deadline.

We are reviewing the impact of executive orders on our NIH grant awards. If you receive notice that your grant will be impacted by the executive orders please contact OGS.

OGS Office Updates and Reminders

We are recruiting for a Senior Grant Specialist and a Grant Specialist. Come join our team!

Resource - Funding: OGS maintains an active license with SPINPlus portal. This portal has over 40,000 funding opportunities and allows investigators to set filters and receive notifications from the system of new field specific opportunities as they become available. Registration for March 12^th at this link.

Reminder - Communication: Please ensure that communication and sponsor required clarifications route through OGS. As the Authorized Organization Representatives (AOR), we will review, provide feedback, and offer our concurrence for all direct sponsor communications.

Reminder – ProposalCentral: If you are submitting to a non-federal sponsor using ProposalCentral and you require institutional signature, you need to list the appropriate central office staff and provide edit access for the collection of signatures. All ProposalCentral full applications require an approved Cayuse record.

Reminder – Federal Applications: SF424 R&R page 1 “Person to be contacted on matters involving this application” list administrator information or Indranil Basu or Morgan McKenna. If you are submitting a DoD application list only OGS contact. SF424 R&R page 2 section for Authorized Representative please list Indranil Basu or Morgan McKenna. Applicant information should include Division as “Albert Einstein College of Medicine.”

Submission Policy Clarification (Enforcement 3/5 Deadline): OGS requires the routing of proposals 8 business days prior to deadline for administrative documents. This includes the final budget, justification(s), Data Management and Sharing Plan (if applicable), biosketch of all key personnel, subcontract documents (signed SOI, performance site, biosketch of key persons, budget, and justification). If complete, you can also upload the Facilities and Other Resources, Equipment, Key Authentication, Vertebrate animal document and the Protection of Human Subjects and study record documents.

If you are collaborating with a foreign site(s), you are required to provide a signed letter of support for each site with the language listed on the supplemental form for OGS review.

We request the upload of final science 2 days prior to deadline (NIH recommendation).

Reminder - Routing: All Cayuse applications require full routing and budget approval prior to submission to sponsors.

Reminder – New Sponsors: If you plan to work with a new sponsor, it is important that OGS review contract and/or award terms. Please route language to OGS prior to submission.

Reminder (Holiday or Office Closure): OGS will have coverage for urgent signatures and application deadline support. Please be proactive and route applications and signature requests to OGS in advance.

Federal Sponsor Updates and Resources

NIH Updates:

NIH has implemented Forms I for all applications with deadlines on or after January 25^th, 2025.

Common Forms- Adoption for Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending (Other Support) for all submissions on or after May 25^th, 2025 (NOT-OD-24-163).

Peer Review – Simplified Review Framework for NIH Research Project Grant Applications (NOT-OD-24-010). This new framework and structure will begin with submission for due dates on or after January 25^th, 2025. Information concerning the framework is included in updated FONs. Resources for Simplified Review Framework webinar and overview of changes are available here.

Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP): OGS is not involved in the implementation of the DMSP. Please do not list OGS, RF, or any other central office on Element 6 of the plan, as this should be project personnel. OGS and Einstein IT are working on template language to share concerning institutional resources.

NIH Data Access and Security: Effective January 25, 2025, new and renewal users will be expected to secure data according to updated NIH Security Best Practices. Updated requirement for security of controlled-access data NOT-OD-24-157. 20 NIH Controlled access repositories (dbGAP, NDA, NIAGADS, etc.). Einstein IT will prepare plan to comply with regulation. Webinar: Community-Days-Securing-NIH-Controlled-Access-Genomic-Data.pptx

NIH – Clarification: NIH does not allow for overlapping or duplicative funding. Please read the extramural article on research integrity. Link: https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2024/10/04/the-how-and-why-of-recovery-of-grant-funds/

Upcoming Form and System updates: The required Cayuse Supplemental form is under review. Several units and administrators have contributed suggestions, which will be incorporated. This new form 5.1 will be circulated for use when the review is complete.

Reminder – Early Approval: Cayuse has added a required field to the proposal in SP (Early Approval /Submission Request). If you require an early review, select Yes, and enter the date in the text box. If you do not require an early review, select No. Please ensure your review request is consistent with the submission policy and provides reasonable turnaround time for OGS review. All documents should be complete and correct to ensure an early review can be completed on the requested date.

Training: Cayuse training will continue to be available monthly. Please contact OGS to request inclusion (OGS@einsteinmed.edu). OGS is creating training in specific areas including Other Support, Common Forms, and Budget Development.

Other support training was provided on February 11^th. The recording can be shared.

Additional training will be available in the first quarter of 2025. More information to come.

Please continue to reach out to OGS for all your research administrative related inquiries. We look forward to continuing to provide a high level of support for your applications as well as clear updates on sponsor's requirements and guidance to maximize funding success!

Sincerely,

M. Caitlin McKenna

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