CIFAR
Cooperative Institute for Alaska Research
Fostering collaboration between NOAA, the University of Alaska, and others doing research in Alaska and its associated Arctic regions
Non-competetive Proposals
1) Investigator Responsibilities
Principal Investigators (PIs) wishing to submit a proposal through CIFAR will need to submit all required elements of the proposal electronically to CIFAR no later than 5 business days prior to the agency deadline.
- UAF Office of Grant and Contract Administration Pre-Award (OGCA-Pre; formerly OSP) routing form, signed by all PIs and co-PIs, their department directors, and fiscal review officers. You do not need OGCA-Pre signatures before submitting to CIFAR.
- The PI’s department assigns a new S number in Banner for the proposal even if the proposal is for an additional increment to an existing CIFAR award.
- In the Project Background Information section, in most cases, PI should indicate:
- Sponsor: NOAA-CIFAR
- Sponsor Type: Federal
- Activity Type: Organized Research
- Project Type: NN for new non-competitive; RN for renewal non-competitive
- Mechanism: CA
- Peer Review: Internal
- Related Proposal in Banner: S number(s) of proposal(s) related to the current proposal. This is especially important if the proposal is for additional funding to a current CIFAR award.
- Project Narrative should be a Microsoft Word document containing the following:
- Proposal title
- Principal investigator(s)
- Period of performance (Start date MUST be the first day of the month, preferably July, and should be no sooner than 2 months after proposal submission. End date must be NO LATER THAN June 30, 2018, the end of CIFAR's current cooperative agreement.)
- Funding (by year, if multi-year); the dollar amount(s) specified here and on your budgets must exactly match those given in the funding memo that your NOAA program manager will submit.
- Name and title of NOAA program manager providing funding; NOAA line office, address, phone number, email
- A non-technical project summary in 200 words or less that describes the activity that would result and importance to NOAA if the proposal was funded. This should be understandable to a scientifically or technically literate lay reader. All acronyms must be defined.
- Statement of work to be performed and timeline
- References cited
- Curriculum vitae of the PI and any co-PIs. (2 page maximum per CV)
- Detailed budget created on the OGCA-Pre budget template (see: 3) Budget Guidelines below) with detailed budget justification. We need an Excel version of the budget, not a PDF file. If applicable, the detailed budget, negotiated F&A rate agreement, and staff benefits rate information must be provided for any subawards.
When submitting a proposal, PIs and their departments must keep in mind that CIFAR is the responsible entity and all communications between the PI/department and the agency’s program manager regarding submission of the proposal must be routed through CIFAR.
2) Routing and Timeline
Assuming the deadlines outlined under item 1 have been met, CIFAR will review the proposal components, prepare our cover sheet, and submit the Grants.gov Grant Application Packet on Grants.gov. After OGCA-Pre has approved the proposal, they will submit the proposal on Grants.gov. The proposal will then be reviewed by our host lab, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and matched up with the funding memo from your NOAA program manager. After the review process with PMEL is complete, the proposal package will be sent to NOAA’s Grants Management Division and NOAA's legal department for additional review. CIFAR may need to contact PIs for additional information if we cannot address questions that arise during the various steps of NOAA review.
3) Budget Guidelines
Budgets for CIFAR proposals will be developed utilizing the same proposal budget guidelines as OGCA-Pre. Please visit the OGCA-Pre (OSP) website for detailed information as well as a link to their budget template.
Please note for on-campus non-competitive CIFAR proposals, F&A is limited to the rate (generally 45.1%) that was negotiated at the time CIFAR’s original cooperative agreement was accepted in 2008. In your budget justification, under the indirect cost recovery rate, please include the following statement plus the link to the FY08 negotiated rates:
CIFAR’s current cooperative agreement, NA13OAR4320056, is a five-year renewal of the original award NA08OAR4320751. As a renewal, Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Costs are those negotiated with the Office of Naval Research in 2008 when the original CIFAR cooperative agreement was approved. At that time indirect costs for sponsored research on the UAF campus were set at 45.1% of the Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC). MTDC includes Total Direct Costs minus tuition, student health care costs, scholarships, subaward amounts over $25,000, participant support costs, and equipment. A copy of the agreement is available at:
FY08 Negotiated Rates for UAF (PDF at http://www.alaska.edu/cost-analysis/downloads/Negotiated/FY08-10_FA_Neg.pdf)
4) Post-Award Guidelines and Report Requirements
Once an award is received by CIFAR, the CIFAR administrator will work with the receiving department to set up the new award in the University’s database, BANNER. After that, the receiving department is responsible for assisting the PI in expending his/her CIFAR award according to the guidelines of post-award administrative processes as established by OGCA. The CIFAR PI and his/her department staff may contact CIFAR administrator Sarah Garcia if help is needed in navigating the OGCA guidelines and processes.
Once an award has been set up, the PI will receive an award letter from CIFAR outlining reporting requirements, and required acknowledgement text for publications and other project outcomes.
Annual reports will be required in April for outcomes for the reporting period from April of the previous year to March 31 of the current year.
Any deviations from the project’s scope of work and/or budget, as well any requests for extensions of project time must be approved by CIFAR prior to any changes being made.