University of Georgia

Category: Announcements

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Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

UGA is taking deliberate steps to enhance its export control compliance program, with the goal of facilitating compliance by the research community.

Export controls are the U.S. laws and regulations that govern the transfer of controlled items or information to foreign nationals, countries, and entities for reasons of national security and foreign policy. Compliance enhancements include the addition of a dedicated export control compliance officer within the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the development of user-friendly export procedures, awareness training, and an export control website that provides compliance related information.

Export controls are implicated in the physical international shipment of controlled items, the disclosure of controlled information to foreign nationals on the UGA campus, and in transactions with sanctioned parties.

Please contact Dan Runge, Export Compliance Officer, at 542-4188 or drunge@uga.edu if you have questions or concerns.

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

The University of Georgia Institutional Review Board (IRB) has instituted new procedures that streamline the review of human subjects research qualifying for exempt review.  UGA recently joined the Flexibility Coalition, a group consisting of major U.S. research institutions and medical centers that has a major goal of identifying “flexibility” measures that institutions can implement in the IRB review to reduce regulatory burden for researchers and/or workload for IRBs without diminishing human subject protections.  This flexibility is permitted for an institution that has limited the scope of its Federalwide Assurance (FWA) for the Protection of Human Subjects to federally sponsored research.  UGA is one of those institutions, which means that it is allowed a degree of flexibility in the review and oversight of unfunded research involving no risk or no greater than minimal risk to the participants.

As its first flexibility initiative, UGA IRB has approved the addition of two new “Flex” Exempt categories for non-federally funded studies.  Also, only certain modifications to exempt research will now require IRB review and approval.  These changes are all embodied in the new Policies and Procedures for Exempt Review available at https://research.uga.edu/docs/policies/compliance/hso/IRB-Exempt-Review.pdf.

The Human Subjects Office (HSO) and the IRB are committed to continuously improving our human research protection program and identifying opportunities for flexibility within the IRB review process.  If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact the HSO Director, Dr. Benilda Pooser at bpooser@uga.edu or 706.542.3199, or the IRB Chair, Dr. Larry Nackerud, at nackerud@uga.edu.

 

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

The University of Georgia Institutional Review Board (IRB) has approved the following new Policies & Procedures and form templates:

These are also available in the eResearch IRB Portal Library .

We encourage you to peruse these new policies/procedures and form templates.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the HSO Director, Dr. Benilda Pooser at bpooser@uga.edu or 706.542.3199, or the IRB Chair, Dr. Larry Nackerud, at nackerud@uga.edu.

 

Categories
Announcements Compliance, Integrity & Safety

UGA users of the CITI online library, which provides mandatory IRB training for Human Subjects Research, Responsible Conduct of Research training and Conflict of Interest training, will no longer be able to use the Internet (IE) 7 browser to access the library, effective March 2015.

CITI currently offers full support for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari;  these constitute 99 percent of CITI traffic. IE 7, which is now more than 8 years old, will be blocked. Site users will need to have IE 8 or later, or use a current version of Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. Older versions are often less secure and provide less functionality.

In the coming months, CITI will be adding several usability enhancements and new features.

Please update your browser accordingly and contact the Human Subjects Office at irb@uga.edu or the Office for Sponsored Programs at sponprog@uga.edu with questions or for additional information.

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Announcements
Effective October 19, 2014, all Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) grantees, exclusive of recipients of multi-year funded awards, will have the ability to use the eRA commons Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) module.  Effective January 1, 2015, AHRQ will require use of the RPPR module.  Also, effective October 19, 2014, AHRQ will standardize all annual progress report due dates.
See more at: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-HS-15-001.html#sthash.gmywxxWC.dpuf
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Announcements

As of October 17, 2014, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires grantees to submit all type 5 progress reports using the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) module in eRA Commons.   Annual progress reports submitted in any format other than the RPPR will not be processed by the NIH and will require resubmission through the RPPR.

This notice supersedes all references to the use of the PHS 2590 for annual non-competing continuation progress reports in Notices of Award.

NIH continues development of the RPPR for final progress reports and for administrative extensions (Type 4s – e.g., SBIR/STTR Fast-Track Phase II application) and will update the community as progress is made.

Additional information and resources on the RPPR, including the current RPPR Instruction Guide and training archives, can be found at: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/rppr/.

Categories
Announcements Technology Commercialization

Master licensing agreements between UGA and Kerafast,  a company that sells rare and unique academic research tools to life science laboratories worldwide, is allowing UGA investigators to efficiently move research tools, from chemicals to biologic materials, from their labs to other universities, as well as non-profit and for-profit research institutions and organizations.

More than 50 products developed by UGA researchers have been made available to the scientific community through Kerafast, while many other materials are being considered for licensing by the company. Five UGA principal investigators are currently using Kerafast’s program:  Michelle Momany,  plant genetics; Michael W.W. Adams, biochemistry and molecular biology; Richard B. Meager, genetics; Duncan C. Ferguson, physiology, pharmacology and small-animal medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine; and  Michael P. Doyle, Department of Food Science & Technology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

These agreements considerably reduce the need for transfer of materials to be preceded by Material Transfer Agreements. As part of these agreements, the company cites publications by UGA researchers that are pertinent to each UGA material the company distributes and also links those products to the researchers’ web pages, enhancing the visibility of UGA research programs.

Kerafast generates an additional funding source for laboratories and research programs by utilizing an online platform to license research materials and tools originating from research institutions. Proceeds from the sales of these materials are then shared between the investigators and the University of Georgia Research Foundation. Kerafast’s interests range from unique chemicals to complex biologic materials (including cells), including hard-to-make organic molecules, metal complexes with unusual properties and structures, antibodies, and GM cells, to name a few.

Nearly 30 UGA faculty, researchers, and scientists, and representatives of UGA’s BioBusiness Center resident companies, recently attended a presentation and luncheon hosted by the UGA Technology Commercialization Office and Kerafast. Access the presentation and learn more: Contact Gene Gama, Senior Licensing Manager, at GJG@uga.edu or 706-583-8088.

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Announcements

Effective October 1, departments will no longer be required to complete and route an administrative action request form (AARF) to access federally funded projects with automatic carryover while waiting for the next increment of funds to arrive. The Office for Sponsored Programs and Contracts & Grants Division have revised their processes to allow continued spending for these types of accounts.

This change was implemented to ease administrative burden and ensure that Principal Investigators can continue to access award funds to support work on their projects. The change will be accomplished by using the same budget and project end dates when processing awards. The change only applies to projects funded directly by federal agencies, not projects funded by federal flow-through from other entities.

Projects that were awarded prior to October 1, 2014, will need to be manually adjusted. Please contact your OSP representative if you have accounts that need to be adjusted. https://research.uga.edu/spa/find-sponsored-projects-team/

 

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Announcements
NIH annual progress reports received on/after October 1, 2014 must include a section to describe how individual development plans (IDPs) are used to identify and promote the career goals of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers associated with the award.
Read more.
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Announcements

MATLAB will be available on a campuswide license later this fall. MATLAB is a high-level language for numerical computational, visualation and application development tool that provides an interactive environment for iterative exploration, design, and problem solving.

Currently, there are about 175 individual licenses to MATLAB and its associated toolboxes among units across the University. The single campus license will give universal access to MATLAB and about 50 toolboxes for all UGA faculty and staff, as well as students in a lab environment. EITS is working with MathWorks, the provider of MATLAB, to transition existing MATLAB licenses at UGA to the campus-wide license. Additional details will be provided to participating units when available.

For more information about MATLAB, please contact Mike Lucas at mlucas@uga.edu by email.