Reporting and DATA Act Open Dialogue Grantees

Do the feds have a formula they want us to use when reporting on partner stations that DO NOT collect unduplicated individuals served? Every year we run up against this issue and how to dissect a number of all served, usually duplicated, to how that breaks down as far as number of individuals served by RSVP volunteers.

Harmonize Requirements and Standardized Collection of Non-Financial Training Prior to Issuance of an Award - Non-Financial Investigator training requirements (e.g. Financial Conflict of Interest, Responsible Conduct of Research, Research with Human Subjects), are convoluted because acceptable subject matter and timelines for completion vary by agency. Non-financial training requirements should be harmonized to reduce ...more »

The government should make efforts to reduce focus on the micro accounting of grant expenditures and move towards a system where the peer review process and program managers base future funding decisions on broader measures of appropriate expenditures of cost. Princeton University suggests that one useful guide might be the IRS rules: in general, any expenditure that would normally be considered taxable income (apart ...more »

Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting:

There needs to be alignment of Federal Spending elements and the elements in the CDERL and elements like entity classification

Allow for easier way to obtain and record RSVP volunteer timesheets. Currently the signature piece is unclear. As long as the supervisor at the site signs off that should be more than enough.

Given that the main product of federally-funded research is typically publications, Princeton University suggests that it would seem sensible to allow submission of PDFs of publications where they have already appeared as a result of the work funded by the grant, and reduce the reliance on extensive research summaries. If nothing has been published, then it makes sense to ask for a report on preliminary progress. NSF ...more »

The requirement to list PubMed Central ID #s is a HUGE time and effort burden for research administrators. That is the #1 requirement I would change. There must be other ways to track compliance with the Public Access Policy.

For each person paid from the grant who worked >160 hours (1 person month) during the grant year, there must be a Commons ID (including the completion of Personal Profile Information). There also needs to be information about the total number of hours each person worked on the grant during grant year so that person months can be calculated. This information is required for undergraduate who may be paid hourly as student ...more »

2. Eliminate Two Layer IRB and IACUC Review of Human and Vertebrate Animal Research - Institutions receiving federal funds for research with human subjects or vertebrate animals are required to maintain a Federal-wide Assurance (FWA) or Animal Welfare Assurance (AWA) with the DHHS Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) or Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW), respectively. Institutions thereby accept the responsibility ...more »

Institutions must manage data for multiple highly complex loan, grant, and work study sources for Title IV aid. Creating uniform interfaces and navigation across existing systems would assist the administrators responsible for maintaining data in multiple portals.

PIs at Princeton University spend a large amount of their time during proposal preparation on compliance approvals. One recommendation would be for the federal government to impose a pre-compliance standard at submission, which could include a document from the sponsored research office listing areas where they know that strict compliance has not been met. The compliance can then be fully implemented once/if the proposal ...more »

Effort Reporting should be incorporated into the progress reports. some sponsors want person months and descriptions of person(s) tasks.