We are now in Phase IV, with research being at full capacity while adhering to USC’s physical distancing, PPE, and testing guidelines. For more information, please see Phases of Research Under COVID-19 and COVID-19 Research Continuity section. USC will continue to monitor federal, state, and local public health guidelines, and respond accordingly.
FACULTY ENGAGEMENT:
Congratulations to our awardees! Please visit our website for all USC funding opportunities.
Strategic Directions in Research Award: 17 proposals were received and 6 awarded: Toinette Frederick (Keck); Kimberly Gokoffski (Keck); David Hutchins (Dornsife); Maral Mousavi (Viterbi); Lawrence Palinkas (Social Work) and Viktor Prasanna (Viterbi).
Zumberge Interdisciplinary Large: 7 proposals were received and 4 awarded: William Deverell (Dornsife); Russell Lansford (Keck); Peter Mancal (Dornsife) and Brent Melot (Dornsife).
Dean’s Matching Fund: 4 proposals were received and 3 awarded: Andrea Hodge & Richard Brutchey (Viterbi & Dornsife); Andrew McMahon (Keck); Catherine Quinlan (USC Libraries).
Basics of Bayh-Dole: Per the USC Research Council recommendation, faculty are required to take a newly developed invention disclosure training course (The Basics of Bayh-Dole) found at http://trojanlearn.csod.com/. The course takes 12 minutes to complete and informs USC researchers on how and why to disclose inventions. This course is required of all federally-sponsored USC researchers as of Sep 1, 2021, so you will be satisfying that upcoming requirement. Please contact Donaldson Santos or Ruben Flores-Saaib with any questions.
FEDERAL LANDSCAPE UPDATES: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer filed the bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act on May 19th, combining the Endless Frontier Act and other bipartisan competitiveness bills. The bill currently authorizes or appropriates more than $200 billion in spending, including $52 billion in subsidies for the semiconductor industry and support for new tech R&D mandates for NSF and DOE. The bill also specifies an initial list of 10 “key technology focus areas” for NSF to focus on.
USC STEVENS CENTER FOR INNOVATION: Each spring the Stevens Center for Innovation celebrates USC researchers whose technology was licensed for the first time during the previous calendar year, or who were named on an issued U.S. Patent. A total of 25 researchers from 6 schools were honored with a Technology Commercialization Award for innovations licensed during 2020, and one Viterbi researcher was inducted into the USC Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors. See the full list on the USC Stevens website.
OPRS/IRB: In Fall 2021 OPRS will be launching the Human Research Protection Council with representatives from: Annenberg, Dweck, Keck (Cancer Center, Preventive Medicine, Keck Medicine), Marshall, Ostrow, Price, Rossier, and Viterbi. This is a time of growth and change for the IRB. We are about to take the first step in reorganization and expansion. Starting in June, we will have a 2nd Associate Director and four Lead Analysts. By the Fall, we will expand to include 4 additional IRB analysts. The IRB has been managing a 4-5 week wait time for new studies and amendments for exempt and expedited studies; the reorganization and expansion will reduce these times. We are also looking for new/additional Full Board members for both the Social Behavioral and Biomedical IRBs. If you are interested, please contact oprs@usc.edu.
CONTRACTS & GRANTS: DCG is excited to announce the release of their Cayuse SP Resources webpage. The webpage offers a series of Pre-Award training resources, including detailed guides and short 3–5-minute training videos. We encourage PIs, proposal preparers, and approvers to review the resources to prepare for the Cayuse SP release on July 1, 2021. As the University implements Workday Financials as of July 1st, DCG has designed Cayuse SP to collect the budget total(s) for each Multi-School/PI identified on a proposal. The information will be utilized to facilitate and automate Award set-up in Cayuse and Workday.
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & SAFETY (EH&S): As we move to more in-person activities across campus, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to the Office of Environmental Health and Safety at ehs@usc.edu.