SPARC continues to host drop-in virtual office hours Tue-Thu from 10 to 10:50 a.m. via Zoom.
Read below for important updates from sponsors and SPARC.
The SPARC office will be officially closed November 23 – November 26. If any proposals are due the week before/after or during these days (proposal deadline November 20 – December 1), please ensure your OSPREY proposal is fully routed and approved and ready to be submitted by November 16. SPARC cannot guarantee that any proposal and/or materials not fully routed and approved by November 16 will be submitted by our office and as such it will be the sole responsibility of the PI to submit. Please note our office is the only office authorized and available to submit grants via any government portal that is not PI based (ex. Grants.gov, Research.gov, NIH ASSIST, S2S via OSPREY, etc.). Please remember OSPREY proposals must be in their finalized state when routed for approval (including a narrative, scope of work, and budget justification) and must have all sponsor required materials uploaded as an attachment at time of route.
The SPARC office will be officially closed December 22 – January 1. If any proposals are due the week before/after or during these days (proposal deadline December 15 – January 5), please ensure your OSPREY proposal is fully routed and approved and ready to be submitted by December 15. SPARC cannot guarantee that any proposal and/or materials not fully routed and approved by December 15 will be submitted by our office and, as such, will be the sole responsibility of the PI to submit. Please note our office is the only office authorized and available to submit grants via any government portal that is not PI based (ex. Grants.gov, Research.gov, NIH ASSIST, S2S via OSPREY, etc.). Please remember OSPREY proposals must be in their finalized state when routed for approval (including a narrative, scope of work, and budget justification) and must have all sponsor required materials uploaded as an attachment at time of route.
NSF has decommissioned FastLane. Friday, September 29, 2023 was the last day to access FastLane submitted and in-progress letters of intent, proposals, and supplemental funding requests. See the FastLane Decommissioning page for details.
With UNCW’s success in graduating more than 20 Ph.D. students in the last two years in areas supported by the National Science Foundation, the institution is no longer considered a Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) by NSF.
WHY IT MATTERS
With this change, effectively immediately, UNCW is no longer eligible to apply for funding from the “Research in Undergraduate Institutions” (RUI) program. Further, the standard 30% cost-share for non-PUI eligible institutions on awards from the NSF Major Research Instrumentation program will be waived by NSF for five-years starting in FY2023, due to the CHIPS and Science act of 2022.
UNCW currently remains eligible for the NIH Academic Research Enhancement Awards (“AREA”) for Undergraduate-Focused Institutions (R15) opportunities, as this change does not impact these opportunities.
NEXT STEPS
If you are currently writing an NSF proposal to submit using the RUI mechanism, NSF recommends submitting directly to the most relevant research program. If you are unsure about the best program, NSF further recommends conducting a keyword search in the NSF awards database to identify pervious funding for similar research efforts. The SPARC pre-award team is available to assist (proposals@uncw.edu ).
Limited Submission proposals for UNC ROI grant accepted through December 1, External Deadline March 11, 2024
Limited Submissions are now open for the University of North Carolina System Research Opportunities Initiative (UNC ROI).
The UNC ROI from the UNC System provides targeted funding for innovative and potentially game‐changing research initiatives. The Fiscal Year 2025 (so noted due to first year of funding) round of awards will focus on institutional block grants to fund initiatives designed to increase research capacity in one of the eligible research areas. Funded by a recurring annual appropriation from the North Carolina General Assembly, the ROI represents a significant financial investment in the UNC System’s strategic goals.
Priority research areas eligible for ROI funding include:
UNCW is able to nominate ONE proposal. Eligible faculty please complete the InfoReady Limited Submission application and attach the following:
ONE proposal will be selected for nomination.
Internal pre-proposal deadline: December 1, 2023
External sponsor due date: March 11, 2024
To apply, click here: https://uncw.infoready4.com/#competitionDetail/1916391