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Is your NIH grant about to end? Three reports are required to properly close out a grant 鈥 a Federal Financial Report (FFR), which is submitted by Sponsored Projects Accounting; and two items which require PI involvement -- a Final Invention Statement and Certification, which is required even if there were no inventions and they were reported previously; and a Final Progress Report. These items are all due within 90 days of the project period end date.

As a PI, you can delegate certain functions and processes to other registered users within NIH eRA Commons. To make this easier, a new 鈥淒elegation鈥 tab has been added within the 鈥淎dmin鈥 tab after logging in as PI. Refer to item 11in the directions documents "eRA Commons: How to Basic Tasks Step by Step".



Over the next year, NIH will begin requiring an eRA Commons ID for all individuals in graduate and undergraduate roles who participate in NIH-funded projects for at least one month or more. To read more about this change in policy, click here.

As previously announced, NIH will require electronic submission for all P01, P20, P50 and U19 applications intended for due dates on or after September 25, 2013. NIH will hold a webinar on Tuesday, August 13, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m., to help potential applicants get acquainted with ASSIST, NIH鈥檚 system for electronic submission of multi-project applications.

As a native Kentuckian, the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center's Dr. Susanne Arnold understands many of the health issues our state faces 鈥 and focusing on the problems that hit hardest close to home has kept her motivated in her work.
"I got into research in Appalachia because I'm an eighth-generation Kentuckian, and my father, who was also a doctor and researcher, was a seventh-generation Kentuckian," Arnold said. "I learned a very valuable lesson from him 鈥 that we can't make progress in the treatment of diseases without being invested in the research that we do."

The NIH has posted announcements for the following Extramural Loan Repayment Programs (LRP):


Laboratory notebooks should err on the side of completeness. Someone from outside your lab should be able to read what was done without your verbal interpretation. General guidelines for lab notebooks include:
鈥 Permanently bound book (not spiral), with acid-free paper
鈥 Pages should be consecutively numbered
鈥 Dated entries
鈥 Signed entries
鈥 Record entries chronologically
鈥 Recorded in English
鈥 Each entry should stand on it's own





In the July 2013 issue of the UK ORI IRB Review, the topic of internet research is discussed. Follow this link to read the article.

Through early support of promising investigators in fields ranging from lung cancer to Alzheimer's disease to pediatric heart disease, the University of Kentucky Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) has seen great return on their investment in recent years in the area of biomedical imaging at UK. The growth through investment ratio in this area has been great, with the return in federally-funded grants greatly multiplying the initial investment by the CCTS in the investigators' work.


Dr. James DuBois, St. Louis University, was awarded a contract from the ORI RCR Resource Development Program to create an RCR casebook with case studies and role playing activities. ORI will be releasing the finished casebook shortly via the ORI website. To read an example case study, click here.

The Facilities and Administrative Cost rate utilized for industry funded clinical trial agreements is the off-campus research rate negotiated with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The federal government caps that rate for universities at 26%. An agreement has been issued to the University of Kentucky by DHHS with new rates that will be effective July 1, 2013. According to information submitted by the Office of Controller and Treasurer to DHHS to develop the new rates, the actual off-campus rate is 27.44%. The actual rate, ro

Sally Rockey, Deputy Director for Extramural Funding at NIH talks about percentile scoring of grant proposals on her blog. To read her comments on percentile scoring, click here.