Introduction to the Office of Grant and Contract Services (OGCS)

Introductory session highlighting how the Office of Grant and Contract Services supports faculty, staff, and students in securing and managing external funding for sponsored projects. The session covered PreAward assistance with funding opportunities and proposal submissions, Award Setup guidance for establishing awards, and PostAward support for managing awards in compliance with sponsor and institutional requirements. Attendees gained valuable insights into streamlining research administration at UTA.

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Navigating Award Closeout and Sponsor Reporting at UTA

Overview of UTA’s award closeout process and sponsor reporting requirements. Provides a discussion of key reports (technical, financial, patent, property), SPA reviews, subaward notices, and sponsor-specific needs (NSF, NIH, CPRIT, etc.). Perfect for new or seasoned admins. Be prepared for a smooth, compliant closeout –  take the guesswork out of sponsor reporting!!

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Basics of Proposal Budgeting

New to budgeting or needed a refresher? This interactive session covered the essentials of building clear, accurate, and funder-compliant budgets. Participants learned the key components, how to align costs with project goals, avoid common pitfalls, and create strong budget justifications.

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Managing Your Award: Budget Oversight and PI Responsibilities

This session, led by PostAward, helped Principal Investigators understand their financial management responsibilities. Key topics included budget monitoring, identifying red flags, prior approval requirements, cost transfers, and handling non-cancellable expenses. The session also covered PI responsibilities for technical and programmatic reporting, along with key deadlines.

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Relationships with Corporate and Private Foundations

Development presented a session on understanding the benefits, processes, and finer points of grant seeking in the philanthropic sector. Discussion included the clear—as well as subtle—differences between public and private funders and how to navigate the often multi-layered, time-sensitive solicitation process in the private realm. Development’s Corporate and Foundation Relations team serves as the liaison for approaching private funders fostering charitable intentions.

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UTA Core Facilities and the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI)

Jeff Campbell, Director of Core Facilities, presented an overview of UTA's shared resources (instrumentation, equipment, facilities, and services).

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Eileen Clements, Interim Executive Director of UTARI, provided an overview of the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI).

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Research, Security, and You: Protecting Your Research Is a Team Effort

Edward Gonzales, Director OIT Research Support, and Garrett Werner, Research Security Manager, presented on the current security environment, including regulatory changes for federal grants along with the burden this places on researchers. Best practices were reviewed in the context of how they help investigators meet their security responsibilities. They concluded with a brief overview of support available to help investigators stay secure and protect their efforts.

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Agreements Overview and Working with Industry

Dan Vincenzo discussed how to contract with industry, and the various agreement options UTA has used to successfully expedite and comfort prospective sponsors who have questions. He discussed the steps you should take internally before meeting with your industry partners, and during the process to fast track industry connections that can lead to funding for your projects.

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OGCS Presents: How to Engage the Department of Defense Medical Research Enterprise: DoD 101

Erik Wolf of The Conafay Group (TCG) provided insight about DoD medical research and development funding. The webinar provided tools that can help you be more competitive for research dollars and win grants from the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and other related entities. He discussed how to engage the DoD, what kinds of research they are interested in, and how the system works and should come away with a realistic understanding of how to work towards these funding opportunities.

OGCS Presents: Introduction to the Day Family Research Lab

The UTA Day Family Research Lab (DFRL) staff provided an overview of the support and partnerships offered by this new space for researchers. The DFRL combines several areas of expertise in one hub at UTA Libraries to support researchers throughout their research journey. We talked about our in-house expertise in data, statistics, systematic/scoping reviews, patents, publishing support, research dissemination/impact, and more! The DFRL is located in Room 510 of the Central Library.

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OGCS Presents: Welcome to OGCS

OGCS discussed how we serve UTA by providing PreAward and PostAward services for externally funded grants and contracts. Together, we serve the needs of our faculty, staff and students by providing services to assist in obtaining and the subsequent management of external funding. PreAward assists with finding funding and submitting proposals. PostAward assists with management of awards and any subawards, in line with sponsor and institution requirements, obtaining prior approvals, managing the budget and final closeout of awards. The Center for Proposal Development (CPD) highlighted proposal development services they provide.

OGCS Presents: Subaward Agreements

Office of Grant and Contract Specialist, Scott Alisoglu, presented on the fundamentals of subaward management, including proposal preparation, agreement negotiation, monitoring and closeout. Topics included the distinctions between subawards and subcontracts, federal and UTA subaward requirements, agreement basics, and PI responsibilities for oversight/management.

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OGCS Presents: mentis Overview

OGCS staff provided a guided tour of mentis, answering questions along the way. The PreAward team kicked it off with how to complete a BlueSheet, with extra emphasis and information on completing the IDC Distribution form, as well as the multiple credit tab. Common reports that are available to the campus community were also discussed. The PostAward team finished the talk with details on a soon to be released dashboard that will contain information about awards, effort and budget, as well as information on useful PostAward reports available in mentis.

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OGCS Presents: Mastering the RPPR

The Office of Grant and Contract Services (OGCS) PostAward team provided an overview of reporting requirements and discussed best practices to successfully complete and submit an RPPR via the eRA Commons grant management system. The eRA Commons system supports grants from NIH, Department of Commerce, AHRQ and several other federal agencies. This provides PI’s an excellent overview of the reporting process at UTA including PI and PostAward roles, submission formats and reporting timelines.

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OGCS Presents: NSF PAPPG Update 2024 and SciENcv Overview

During the first part of the session, we discussed the NSF changes (biosketch, mentoring plan, synergistic activities, etc.) that became effective May 20, 2024, with the release of the PAPPG 24-1. These changes are effective for proposals due on or after May 20, 2024. The second half of this session was a refresher on the use of the SciENcv for biosketches and the Current and Pending Support.

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CPD Presents: Understanding Minority Serving Institutions: History, Purpose, Impact, and Contemporary Relevance

Jasmine Parker, senior director of employee and cultural engagement at Dallas College, discussed the significance of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) by exploring their historical context, purposes, societal impact, and reasons why they are crucial in the contemporary educational landscape. By examining the evolution of MSIs, their unique contributions, challenges, and the current socio-political climate, participants gained a comprehensive understanding of the necessity and relevance of MSIs today.

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How to Write Successful Proposals for NSF Career, DOD Young Investigator and other Grants for Early-Career Researchers

Consultant Lucy Deckard of Academic Research Funding Strategies, LLC lead a webinar on NSF CAREER and other grants specifically for junior faculty. How to identify the right grants and how to write those proposals. Emphasis will be on the NSF CAREER, but other early career grants will also be discussed.

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Agreements Overview and Working with Industry

Dan Vicenzo discusses how to contract with industry, and the various agreement options we have developed to successfully expedite and comfort prospective sponsors who have questions. We discuss the steps you should take internally before meeting with your industry partners, and during the process to fast track industry connections that can lead to funding for your projects.

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Strategies for Planning, Developing, and Writing Large Center Proposals

Consultant Lucy Deckard of Academic Research Funding Strategies, LLC leads a webinar for faculty who have been successful in winning single-PI and small team grants and are looking to transition to larger team and center-level grants. We discuss how these larger grants are different, what the expectations of the funding agencies are for large team and center grants, successful strategies and common mistakes to avoid.

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Introducing UTA’s Department of Proposal Development

Dr. Dolores Raivzee-Bell, newly appointed director of UTA’s Center for Proposal Development, presents an overview of the department’s roles and responsibilities in serving faculty, staff, and students. The Center for Proposal Development provides assistance in grant writing, review and editing of large-scale funding proposals. Additional information shared on target goals for the 2024 academic year.

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Supplements

OGCS staff discuss Supplements - opportunities available for your funded NIH and NSF awards. Supplements offer additional funding to support administrative needs, equipment, additional personnel (including students) or to expand the scope of an awarded project. In this session, we summarize supplement opportunities and outline the application process and assistance offered by our PreAward staff. PostAward staff present on unique aspects of supplement management.

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Logic Model to Maximize Your Funding Potential

Consultants Rene Paulson & Mindy Chandler of Elite Research, LLC discuss funding agencies desire to invest their money in solid programs that are a direct result of solid design. A solid design comes from a logic model. This workshop is designed to help you maximize your funding potential by ensuring your program or project design has a solid foundation.

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PI Responsibilities

Invited guest speaker, Jeremy Forsberg, Associate Vice President for Research, discusses the Principal Investigators (PI) responsibilities at the University of Texas at Arlington for conducting research. Also, he covers faculty disclosure and reporting requirements of UT Arlington, concerns of foreign influence and disclosures necessary to federal agencies.

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Welcome to OGCS

The Office of Grant and Contract Services (OGCS) serves the UTA community by providing PreAward and PostAward services for externally funded grants and contracts. Together, we serve the needs of our faculty, staff and students by providing services to assist in obtaining and the subsequent management of external funding.

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Managing Compensation on Sponsored Projects

This training session is designed to assist Principal Investigators (PI’s) and the grants community in monitoring and managing compensation on their active grants and sponsored projects.

Major topics covered include: initiating payroll on your new project, sponsor restrictions (eg, additional pay, salary cap, NSF, DHHS), payroll confirmation at UTA, buyout & faculty research supplemental award.

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How to Pursue Funding from Mission Agencies (DOE, DoD, NOAA, NASA and other Agencies)

For faculty researchers on how to approach mission agencies, develop and write white papers, concept papers and quad charts for unsolicited proposals to the agencies that require them.

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Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers NSF's most prestigious awards to junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, educational excellence, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. If you are a pre-tenure faculty member, hold a doctoral degree in a discipline supported by NSF, and are engaged in STEM and/or STEM education research, the CAREER Program could be a great fit for you. This session will provide an overview of the CAREER Program, tips and strategies to help develop a competitive proposal, and showcase recent CAREER awardees at UTA.

Pursuing Research Funding from Industry

Webinar for Faculty, Staff or Students to learn about how to develop collaborations with industry and how to pursue industry funding for research. Presented by Lucy Deckard, who has helped to develop successful proposals to NSF, NIH, the Department of Education, the Department of Defense, and other agencies and foundations, including proposals for large institutional and center-level grants. Download the speaker's notes.

Pursuing Funding in the Humanities and Humanities-Related Social Sciences

This webinar explores the types of funding available to support research in the humanities and humanities-related social sciences. Researchers will learn how to compete for grants that support travel to collections and libraries from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and private foundations.

NSF's Broader Impacts

Are you writing a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant and would like a deeper understanding of NSF's Broader Impacts (BI) criterion? This session will help you make sense of the BI criterion and empower current and future PIs to conceptualize, develop, implement and evaluate BI activities.

Current and Pending Support Seminar

Many sponsoring agencies request information on an investigator's existing or pending research support as part of a proposal or during the PreAward process. Sometimes called Current and Pending Support or Other Support, this section of a proposal or just-in-time submission requests information on current funding and pending proposals. In this workshop, you will learn how to accurately represent other funding sources in your proposals and award reports.

Goal Alignment, Concept Papers & Pitches

Whether you plan to write a proposal for a federal agency, foundation, or an internal grant competition, this workshop will help you build your foundation for a solid proposal by aligning your design elements, creating the concept paper, and refining and practicing your pitch.

Developing Your Collaborative Research Team and Multidisciplinary/Center Grants

Whether you plan to write a proposal for a federal agency, foundation, or an internal grant competition, this workshop will help you build your interdisciplinary research team and funding trajectory for multidisciplinary/center grants.

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