Monthly Update – February 2020

FACULTY ENGAGEMENT: We value faculty involvement in the USC Research and Innovation (R&I).  We work with 20 standing faculty committees; please reach out to any committee member or to us directly to get involved. 

FEDERALLY MANDATED DISCLOSURES OF FOREIGN COLLABORATIONS:   Get a short summary here to make sure you are aware of new federally enforced rules.  

EXAMPLES OF GRANT PROPOSALS: We are creating a repository of highly scored funded grant proposals for USC faculty (under Shibboleth login). If you’d like to share your proposal or have other ideas of how we can help, let us know

TRAINING WORKSHOPS & MENTORING: We welcome your ideas for the Center of Excellence in Research (CER) workshops; we’d love to hear from you. Last fall, 680 faculty & postdocs registered to attend one of 20 CER workshops held. Click here for upcoming CER workshops.   

AN UPDATE ABOUT USC RESEARCH CENTERS & INSTITUTES:  Procedures for Establishing and Governing Cross-School Research Institutes & Centers  

FEDERAL FUNDING PATHWAYS: The DC Office of Research Advancement has provided customized advice on federal funding opportunities to the 52 faculty/teams who applied to the first round of Provost New Strategic Directions for Research Award program. In DC, the President’s budget request for federal funding is available and emphasizes AI, quantum information science, advanced manufacturing, and wireless technologies. For assistance in planning and preparing proposals across USC units on those and other topics, contact Dr. Steven Moldin

USC STEVENS CENTER FOR INNOVATION: On March 1, USC Stevens will launch a brief post-licensing customer satisfaction survey.  Following the execution of a license agreement, the survey will be sent to all faculty who are named inventors on the licensed patent(s)/technology.  We want your feedback. 

RESEARCH INTEGRITY: The USC Research and Innovation (R&I) Integrity welcomes opportunities to speak with faculty and students, individually and in groups, about topics including research integrity and best laboratory practices.  Training sessions are customizable by discipline, audience, duration, and venue.  Please contact Dr. Kristen Grace for more information. 

OPRS/IRB:  We are excited to announce that we are updating iStar to make it more user-friendly. For faculty, staff, and students submitting applications to the Social Behavioral IRB, as of March 15th, we are moving away from the open text boxes to a user-friendly Word doc template. This will simplify the process, reduce duplication of content, and facilitate review. Those submitting applications to the Biomedical IRB (formerly HSC IRB) will continue to use the already provided Word doc template for Biomedical research. 

CONTRACTS & GRANTS:   Did you know that USC DCG offers an Enhanced Proposal Review for any proposal ready to submit 3 business days in advance of the sponsor’s deadline or the USC deadline?  This includes a comprehensive non-technical administrative and budget review for meeting the sponsors’ guidelines.  More details are found in the DCG Service Commitment.