Grants Management Assignment Changes
The Grants Management Office (GMO) has announced changes related to which of their staff members will handle grant matters for various CLA Departments. This reassignment is the result of increased volume in submissions and awards.
 
Anything with a due date of 9//20/2016 and beyond for the departments noted below will move to the new Specialist, all of whom are prepared for this transition. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your designated Specialist.
 
Political Science, Anthropology, Neuroscience moves to Carrie Farmer.
 
Criminal Justice moves to John Penner.
 
Economics moves to Angie Calicat.
 
Sustainable Communities moves to Elysa Weiss.
 
For now, all other departments in CLA will remain with Sherri Gibbs. Further changes to the GMO assignments may be forthcoming.
 
 eRA@TU v.15 Coming Soon
Prior to the end of the semester, GMO anticipates releasing a new version of the eRA@TU system. The system will have a new look, many upgrades, and more. Further information will be released as soon as it is available.
 
Real World Humanities
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article in which William Adams, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, discusses “humanities as resources for daily life.” In this article, Adams works to convey the idea that the humanities are not as disconnected from society as many people believe them to be. The full article can be found here.
 
Banner Upgrade 
This coming weekend, from 10:00 am on September through 2:00 pm Sunday, Computer Services will perform a major Banner system upgrade. During this time, a number of Banner and related university administrative systems will be unavailable. For a complete list, see the CS System Maintenance page.

Please Note: Systems such as Blackboard (learn.temple.edu), TUmail and WebEx are NOT impacted by this upgrade.

Fastlane Compliance Checks Implemented
Effective September 26, 2016, FastLane will now check to ensure that the combined text of the Project Summary text boxes (or uploaded PDF if the Project Summary contains special characters) does not exceed one page prior to submission, rather than the current check of 4,600 characters. See the Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG), Chapter II.C.2.b, for further information.
 
The compliance check will trigger an error message in the following circumstances:
 
•        Project Summary text exceeds the one-page limit; and
•        Project Summary text is entered and the user also uploads a “Project
         Summary with Special Characters” supplementary document. Proposal File
         Update

(PFU) Implications: 
 Proposers should be aware that if a proposal was received by NSF prior to September 26, 2016, containing a Project Summary that complies with the previous 4,600-character limit but exceeds the one-page limit, a PFU addressing any section of the proposal will result in the proposal not being accepted if it does not comply with these compliance checks. The checks will be run on all sections of the proposal, regardless of which section was updated during the PFU. 
 
Proposers should also be aware that Grants.gov will allow a proposal to be submitted, even if it does not comply with these proposal preparation requirements. Should NSF receive a proposal via Grants.gov that is not compliant, it will be returned without review.
 
For system-related questions, please contact the NSF Help Desk at 1-800-381-1532 or Rgov@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions should be directed to policy@nsf.gov. 

NIH to Fund Smoking Prevention Opportunity
NOT-OD-16-151 has been published as a Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science for Research Relevant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This U54 funding mechanism has the overall objective “to conduct programs of multidisciplinary research that will inform the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products related to the regulatory authorities of FDA CTP. The research findings that will be generated from this FOA are expected to provide additional scientific data to inform the regulation of tobacco products to protect public health.”