Cayuse Provides a Solution to Grants.gov Problems
The Office of Research and Graduate Studies is responding proactively to address the shortcomings of Grants.gov, the federal program that provides access to all major grant programs. While the limitations of Grants.gov have been apparent for some time, the recent flood of proposals caused by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) made finding a solution a high priority.
For KU, the solution is Cayuse www.cayuse.com, a System-2-System (S2S) web-based platform that will speed up the submission process and reduce the risk of a missed deadline. The cost of implementing Cayuse is being borne by the KU Center for Research.
Submitting proposals directly to Grants.gov is a “person-to-system” approach with multiple bottlenecks. There are a limited number of log-ons possible nationwide, for example. Inadvertent errors can result in rejection, and printing a paper copy of the proposal is tedious.
By contrast, Cayuse automatically in-fills certain information and flags errors prior to submission. Printing a copy of the proposal and attachments is a simple, one-step process. Because it employs an S2S approach, Cayuse avoids the problem of limited log-ons.
“Cayuse is an awesome tool,” says Kristi Billinger, assistant manager of proposal services. “It’s very user-friendly. After our initial trial runs, we submitted two proposals. Both went in immediately. We didn’t have to `take a number’ and wait, as often happens with Grants.gov.”
The first two proposals submitted via Cayuse were from Renee Patrick, Life Span Institute at Parsons, and Sheryl Williams, Spencer Research Library; one to the Department of Health and Human Services and the other to the National Archives and Records Administration. “The submitters are happy with how it went,” said Billinger, “but most people probably won’t notice the change. However, it’s a very big deal for those of us in Proposal Services, since Cayuse is a time-saver that increases everyone’s confidence that the submission is as clean as possible.”
Effective July 1, KUCR will implement changes to the Retroactive Funding Adjustment (RFA or RF) process which affects payroll on sponsored research projects. This change will include a new form, which is still under revision. Additional information will be available before this policy takes effect. Notification will be sent through the HRIS e-mail listserv, KUCR research administration listerv, as well as other methods.
KUCR Recognizes Hemenway, LariviereThe following two resolutions were adopted at the May 12 meeting of the KU Center for Research Executive Committee:
Both resolutions were adopted unanimously. Heppert Named RGS Associate Vice Provost“Be it resolved, that the KUCR Executive Committee congratulates Chancellor Robert Hemenway for his visionary leadership in the creation of the KU Center for Research, Inc. in 1997 and his 12 years of outstanding service as the founding chair of the Board of Trustees.”
“Be it resolved, that the KUCR Executive Committee congratulates Provost Richard Lariviere for his three years of outstanding service as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, and wishes him well in his new role as President of the University of Oregon.”
Joseph Heppert, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry, will assume new duties in the fall as an associate vice provost for research and graduate studies and a vice president of the KU Center for Research Inc.
He will initially serve part time in that role, becoming full time on Jan. 1, and will report to Steve Warren, vice provost for research and graduate studies.
“Joe has a strong science research background, administrative experience and an appreciation for KU’s teaching mission,” said Warren. “He is familiar with several of the major KU research centers and his work has received federal, foundation and industry funding. I look forward to having Joe as part of the senior management team in research and graduate studies.”
Heppert will succeed George Wilson, the Higuchi Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, who announced last fall that he would be stepping down as associate vice provost at the end of 2009. The two will work together during the fall semester.
The associate vice provost shares oversight of research administration, strategic planning and other responsibilities. Heppert will have specific oversight of the Higuchi Biosciences Center, Information Telecommunication and Technology Center, Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, Kansas Geological Survey, Kansas Biological Survey, Animal Care Unit and all University Core Lab Facilities. He will also have primary responsibility for issues related to research space and infrastructure.
Other associate vice provosts in research and graduate studies are Joshua Rosenbloom and Sara Rosen. Both are vice presidents of the KU Center for Research, and Rosen is also dean of graduate studies.
Heppert joined the KU faculty in 1985, following two years of postdoctoral work at Indiana University. He became a full professor in 2000 and chair of the department in 2005. Also in 2000, he became director of KU’s Center for Science Education.
Mary Denning, co-coordinator of the Human Subjects Committee Lawrence Campus (HSCL), was promoted to coordinator, effective March 22nd. She reports to Bill Sharp, director of the Office of Research Integrity, and succeeds David Hann, who retired in May after 16 years in the position. (An article about David’s career and the work of the HSCL appeared in this newsletter last May.)
Mary was featured in the “People at RGS” section in January. In addition to her other duties, she is currently working toward a Ph.D. degree at KU in communication studies.
Mary was succeeded by Jan Butin, who has been serving as a compliance coordinator in Research Integrity. Jan will serve as associate coordinator for HSCL.
For more information about human subjects research and the work of the HSCL, go to http://www.rcr.ku.edu/hscl/.
Pharmacy Construction Now Under WayMore than 200 people attended the May 26 groundbreaking ceremony for a new School of Pharmacy building on the West Campus. Featured speakers at the event (relocated to the Lied Center because of the weather) included U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, Lt. Gov. Troy Findley, State Sen. Vicki Schmidt, Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Ken Audus, dean of the School of Pharmacy.
The new 110,000-square-foot building was funded by legislation authorizing $50 million in bonding authority from the state of Kansas. Approximately $4.5 million will go to an addition for the pharmacy school on the Wichita campus.
“Through this new facility and the planned addition to our campus in Wichita, the School of Pharmacy will be able to produce more pharmacists and improve access to health care for all Kansans,” said Hemenway. “Kansas has shortages in pharmacists in both in rural and urban parts of the state. This expansion puts us on track to address this need.”
Currently, the school enrolls about 540 students in its doctoral programs. For the past seven years, it has ranked in the top five U.S. schools of pharmacy in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Last year, it was ranked 16th among public programs by U.S. News and World Report. An estimated 63 percent of KU pharmacy graduates live and work in Kansas after graduation, providing a range of vital health care services.
Beyond Kansas, Audus said, the new facility would help to push forward new pharmaceuticals and treatments that will benefit people around the globe.
Construction of the new School of Pharmacy building is now well under way. Large earth-moving machines are preparing the site and digging foundations, and construction workers are on-foot in the area. Persons who work at MRB, SBC, the Kansas Geological Survey and other West Campus research buildings should be prepared to stop or slow down when driving on Becker Drive or Constant Avenue south of 19th Street.
The West Campus pond, adjacent to Kurata Labs, will be lowered five feet from its normal level during the early stages of construction. This temporary change will help prevent flooding of the excavated basement, which could delay the work. An existing storm sewer which ran through the new building's location is being relocated, which made this change necessary. The depth change is estimated to last about two months.
A new, three-year industry research collaboration at the University of Kansas will explore ways to use renewable resources in fuels, key chemicals, plastics and other common materials. Goals of the project include the development of products that can reduce petroleum consumption and develop new markets for agriculture.
The Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA) gave final approval in May for an investment of $1.2 million that will match a $1.2 million commitment from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) for work with KU’s Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis (CEBC). The project expands upon research that’s been under way for the past four years at KU into biorefining, the use of biomass to produce feedstock for a variety of industrial processes.
“We are pleased that ADM, a global leader in biorefining research and innovation, has chosen to partner with CEBC,” said Bala Subramaniam, director of the center. “The project is an excellent match for our faculty expertise and research facilities and supports the KBA’s vision of a thriving biorefining industry in Kansas.”
The ADM research will focus on multiple areas: converting carbohydrate feedstock into a form of engineering plastic known as BDO; converting vegetable oils to lubricants and other industrial chemicals; eliminating the need for a petrochemical that’s used in food and beverage packaging; and the development of biofuels.
In addition to the $2.4 million from ADM and the KBA, KU is providing $334,000 of in-kind support for the project. Subramaniam, the Dan F. Servey Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, will work with a counterpart at ADM to provide overall project management.
“It’s exciting to be working with a company like ADM, and it’s an important project for Kansas and the country,” said Carey Novak, KU’s director of business and industry outreach. “This is one of our largest industry collaborations ever, and it may lead to even bigger projects in the future.”
- Mickie Gillispie and Joshua Myers have joined the transaction review team in Post-Award Services at Youngberg Hall.
- Abby Ehling has joined the Graduate Application Processing Center as an application processor at Strong Hall. She succeeds Gina King, who moved to the School of Pharmacy as an administrative assistant senior.
- KU Endowment published an article, “Science for Life,” in its spring edition of KU Giving. The article focuses on the new Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation (IAMI), made possible by an $8.1 million grant from the Kauffman Foundation with matching contributions from KU Endowment. The article is on-line at http://www.kuendowment.org/kugivingpdfs/spring09/
science_for_life.pdf.
- KU’s Tertiary Oil Recovery Project is featured prominently in the May issue of The American Oil & Gas Reporter. Paul Willhite, Ross H. Forney Distinguished Professor and co-director of TORP, discusses the results of research using injected CO2 to increase oil field yield.
Congratulations to the three KU graduate students who won prestigious Fulbright awards for 2009-10, and the one other who received a Boren Graduate Fellowship. Recipients are:
- Sidney Dement, a doctoral student in Slavic Languages and Literatures, received both a US Student Fulbright Program grant and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation grant to Russia. In Moscow, he will research Mikhail Bulgakov's notebooks and manuscripts for the novel Master and Margarita in the Manuscript Division at the Russian State Library.
- Ashley Eltson, a doctoral student in Art History, received a Fulbright award to Italy where she will conduct research on underexplored late medieval and Renaissance painted and sculptured reliquary cupboards in Padua and the Vento. This research, coupled with work that she has already accomplished in Florence and Siena, will be incorporated into her dissertation.
- Hilary Hungerford, a doctoral student in Geography, received both a US Student Fulbright Program grant and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation for doctoral research in Niger. Her Fulbright project is to investigate the gendered experiences of water privatization in urban areas by examining the experiences of women in poor and informal settlements in Niamey, Niger.
- Brett Chloupek, a doctoral student in Geography, received a Boren Graduate Fellowship, to conduct research for his dissertation, a comparative study of the geographic changes in Catholic adherence in three Western Slavic countries: Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Congratulations to Alphild Dick, a master’s student in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures, received a highly competitive Title VIII Southeastern Europe Research Grant from the American Council for International Education. She will spend four months (August - December 2009) in Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Belgrade, researching biography as a literary genre in the post-war literature of former Yugoslavia.
People of RGS
Each month, we introduce you to staff in the Office of Research and Graduate Studies (RGS) who make a difference on campus and in their community. Is there someone you’d like to see featured? Contact kboatright@ku.edu.
Suzanne Henderson
| Title: | Grants Specialist/Electronic Research Administrator, Proposal Services |
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| Years at KU: |
10 |
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| Duties: | Much of my day is spent interacting with PIs, other universities and agencies. I work on budgeting, checking compliances, and interpreting agency and internal guidelines and policies to assist PIs in submitting strong, organized proposals. One of my major duties is serving as the primary electronic research administrator and primary contact for the new web-based Cayuse System-2-System (S2S) product for submission of applications to Grants.gov. The days of hard-copy submissions are almost completely gone. It is my job to try and stay current and make electronic submission as effortless as possible for the KU research community. Portal sites such as Grants.gov allow submission to a variety of agencies but have been unreliable. As the Proposal Services contact person with Cayuse, I’ve been working with others to determine how best to configure the system for our needs. We have all pulled together to get the system up and running. I cannot express how excited we are for the KU research community being able to use this tool for submissions. |
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| For Fun: | A few of my hobbies include reading, occasionally playing cards and watching suspense/drama movies with my daughter. Some hobbies have devolved. I used to jog but now I take walks. I also love getting my hands dirty working in my flower garden, and think it is quite relaxing to put on my fuzzy slippers at night. Being a wife and mother brings me great joy and keeps me busy! Our son has completed a year of college and our daughter will be a junior in high school. I have previous experience working as a paralegal/legal assistant. A couple of places I was employed as a paralegal were the District Court Trustee office and Petefish, Curran, Immel and Heeb. |
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Upcoming events
A calendar of events of interest to the research community
June 7
Final Date for Current Exhibitions
Spencer Museum of Art
http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/
- “Trees and Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature and Culture”
- “Climate Change at the Poles”
- “A Greenland Glacier: The Scale of Climate Change – Photographs by Terry Evans”
June 9
KU Summer Session begins
Natural History Museum Day Camps
Dyche Hall
http://www.nhm.ku.edu/Hdocs/DayCamps.html, 864-4173
- June 15: Dinosaur Detectives (FULL)
- June 18: Geology Explorations
- June 22: Forensic Fun
- June 23: Geocaching
- June 24: Space Odyssey
- June 25: Aquatic Biology
June 27-October 5
Exhibition: “xy”
Spencer Museum of Art, Kress Gallery
http://www.spencerart.ku.edu/exhibitions/xy.shtml
