Grantopedia

Support for the Health Care Innovation Challenge Grant

Cayuse 424 version 4.8 is shipping to Cayuse customers this weekend, with support for the Health Care Innovation Challenge grant. Nearly a billion dollars is allocated to this grant opportunity, to be awarded in increments from $1,000,000 to $30,000,000.

Cayuse is pleased to deliver full support for this opportunity. Cayuse customers can collaboratively prepare the grant application, validate that the application is error-free, and submit the proposal electronically to Grants.gov.

In addition, Cayuse 424 makes it easy to import their subcontractor's budgets into the prime proposal. Non-Cayuse customers can use the free service at Subawards.com to prepare their subcontract proposal and send it to their Cayuse-powered collaborators for import and electronic submission.

From the grant announcement:

This initiative will fund applicants who propose compelling new models of service delivery/payment improvements that hold the promise of delivering the three-part aim of better health, better health care, and lower costs through improved quality for Medicare, Medicaid, and Children?s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees.

Suggest an app idea to the federal government

The federal government wants your ideas for apps! They have set up a Google Moderator site in which you can suggest an app and vote on apps that have been suggested by others. Check it out here:

 http://www.google.com/moderator/#15/e=9e436&t=9e436.46

You can find list of currently available apps at USA.gov.

GRC Hosts the External Funding Conference

The Grants Resource Center is hosting their External Funding Conference August 21 - 24 in Washington, DC. Representatives from many federal funding agencies will be making presentations and will be available for individual meetings.

A number of Cayuse customers rely on the GRC for their expertise in sponsored funding.

Science Funding in 2012 Budget Request

Against the backdrop of Washington DC politics and budget wrangling, it's useful to see where science and research spending fits. The graphic here at Live Science shows that science agencies combine for about 2% of the total budget, with details on the funding levels over the past three fiscal years.

NIH and NRSA funding levels

NIH announced at the Federal Demonstration Partnership meeting last month that overall appropriations for the balance of the fiscal year are set at $30.9 B, a 1% decrease relative to last year's funding. However, the National Research Service Awards (NRSA) program recieved a 2% increase in funding.

Two other notes from the NIH regarding research grant applications:

• The Personal Statement in teh Biosketch can now be used to explain a hiatus or reduced productivity.
• No Cost Extensions (NCEs) can now be requested for 1 to 12 months, previously it was only 6, 9, or 12 months.

Updated NIH Kirschstein-NRSA Rates

NIH has published the updated stipend levels and rates for training and fellowships in FY 2011.  These rates are used in creating budgets for F and T grant opportunities with deadlines after 4/25/2011. Cayuse customers prepare and submit these opportunities electronically in Cayuse 424, and the rate tables are stored in the system. That makes it easy to create accurate budgets for proposals.

Update on grant proposal submissions and operations during shut-down

The best information we have as of today is that Grants.gov will continue to operate normally during a federal government shut-down. The site is hosted and staffed by a government contractor at a third party location. These operations are fully funded, so all indications point to grant applications being processed normally by the Grants.gov servers.

Most of the main sponsoring agencies, like the NIH, have systems which automatically retrieve grant proposals from Grants.gov. As long as Grants.gov is accepting applications and as long as the automated agency systems are retrieving them, proposals will be submitted normally.

However, anything that requires human interaction would be subject to delay. Technical issues with a submission, for example, that would normally route through a help desk escalation process would not be likely to receive attention during a shut-down, owing to staff and contractor furloughs. This good news for Cayuse sites, since errors or problems on proposals are quite rare.

The official guidelines from the White House to the federal agencies are posted here (PDF). The only services and web sites that would continue operating are "excepted activities," meaning those that deal with public safety.

This article from Federal Computing Weekly offers reporting on questions surrounding other types of government web sites.

Grants.gov and the government shut-down

Although nothing official has been published from Grants.gov, we don't expect any impact on Cayuse customers who may be submitting grant applications during a possible government shut-down. The Grants.gov servers and technology are operated by a third-party contractor. Since those services are paid in advance, there will be no interruption in service. There may or may not be an impact on the Grants.gov help desk, but Cayuse customers rarely need to use the help desk, since nearly every Cayuse 424 electronic submission is error-free. If the shut-down occurs, the staff at the Grants.gov PMO will likely be drastically reduced. Here is some additional information on a possible shut-down.

Cayuse 424 Supporting the NSF Research.gov Application Submission Web Service

National Science Foundation (NSF) and Cayuse are pleased to announce the availability of the Research.gov Application Submission Web Service for all Cayuse 424 customers. This new service enables research institutions to seamlessly use Cayuse 424 to prepare and submit grant applications directly to NSF via Research.gov.

With Research.gov Application Submission Web Service, NSF offers the following benefits for Cayuse424 customers:

• Enable you to use the system you are familiar with to submit application packages directly to NSF.
• Offer a seamless submission process – prepare and submit applications the same way you would submit any other electronically submittable application.
• Provide fast confirmation of application package receipt from Research.gov.
• Leverage the Research and Related data standard used across the government.

This new Research.gov service will be available for all Cayuse 424 institutions Starting March 7, 2011. In conjunction with the expansion, we are inviting all Cayuse customers to participate in a webcast demonstration of this new Research.gov service.  The webcast demonstration is scheduled for Thursday, March 3 at 2:30 EST / 11:30 PST and will provide an overview of the Application Submission Web Service, as well as a walkthrough of the Cayuse 424 preparation and submission process.

To register for the webcast, click here.

For more information about Application Submission Web Service and the webcast demonstration, please contact Research.gov at feedback@Research.gov or Cayuse at customerops@cayuse.com.

Federal "Apps" Economy

The Office of Management and Budget is recommending cuts in areas of the federal IT budget. This is consistent with what we've heard from Grants.gov, which is that their budget is flat, though, thankfully, not reduced.

Vivek Kundra, as reported in Washington Technology, mentions technology trends that will influence future federal IT. One of the interesting trends is "an 'apps economy' for open-source technologies as well as challenges and prizes to spur innovation."

The best "app" for federal grant proposal development and electronic submission? Cayuse 424, of course.