The USC Research and Innovation (R&I) would like to wish you and your families a Happy Holiday season. To prepare for the University’s Winter Recess, below are some important dates and reminders regarding upcoming office closures.
In observance of the University’s Winter Recess, R&I administrative offices will close for Winter Recess on Monday, December 19, 2022, and reopen on Monday, January 2, 2023. Principal Investigators and Department Administrators should be mindful of this closure when planning the submission of:
- Proposals with deadlines that fall between these dates
- Proposals with deadlines in early January 2023
- IRB and IACUC protocol submissions
- Animal purchase orders and medications
We greatly appreciate your support over the past year and look forward to working with you in 2023. Our best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season!
FACULTY ENGAGEMENT:
Your response is needed! Call to Action (CTA) is a university-wide security initiative aimed at implementing short-term risk reduction activities to better prepare for cyber-attacks. The CTA team has identified points of contact (POCs) for all research groups (list is on the CTA landing page) and are working with Research Deans to ensure these POCs complete a survey every Wednesday to report their progress on 21 CTA action items. If you are a POC, we encourage you to respond so that your progress can be accurately reported. More information on the 21 CTA action items and due dates can be found in the CTA Glossary of the SecureIT-USC SharePoint. For additional information or support, please attend Office Hours held every Monday, Thursday, and Friday from 12:00 – 1:00 pm via Zoom or email Secgovrn@usc.edu.
Research and Scholarship Training Workshops: Are you a faculty or staff who wants to help researchers learn skills that will help them improve their work? The Center for Excellence in Research is looking for volunteers to teach a one to two hour-long workshop via Zoom this spring on topics such as research resources/methods, professional development, grant writing, etc. Any ideas you think would be useful are welcome! Apply here by Friday, December 2. If you would like to be updated about new workshops, please join our mailing list.
CONTRACTS & GRANTS:
The Department of Contracts and Grants recently launched Cayuse Sponsored Projects (SP) training materials. Cayuse SP is slated to replace Kuali Coeus (KC) as the University-wide grants management pre-award and non-financial post-award system. Cayuse SP will integrate with several USC systems, including iStar, Trojan Learn, and Workday, allowing for a more streamlined and efficient connection between systems. To prepare USC research faculty and staff for the transition to Cayuse SP, DCG is also offering an introductory online course entitled “Preparing Proposals in Cayuse Sponsored Projects”, which aims to walk users through the new Cayuse SP interface and assist users in creating, routing, and approving proposal records.
DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL RESOURCES: DAR animal care technicians, veterinary technicians, and veterinarians will be available through the Winter Recess to support daily care; however, the DAR business office will be closed.
FEDERAL LANDSCAPE UPDATES: A bipartisan group of 15 senators is pressing leadership on both appropriations committees to fully fund the science portion of the CHIPS and Science Act as part of the year-end omnibus package. The lawmakers urged full appropriations for a new DOC program on regional innovation hubs, a high-tech manufacturing program at NIST and two sprawling programs at NSF.
OPRS/IRB: At this time of year each year the IRB experiences a substantial increase in the number of new exempt and expedited study submissions. We expect the wait time (time for an IRB Analyst to be assigned to review a new submission) to increase due to the upcoming Winter Recess.
To ensure that undergraduate and graduate students can engage in research activities in the Spring term, beginning on December 1, undergraduate and graduate student exempt and expedited submissions will be prioritized for review. This will not affect the approach taken to review submissions that qualify for urgent review or contract/grant approvals and amendments will continue to be reviewed normally.
To account for the Winter Recess, we have adjusted the calendar for Biomedical Full Board studies for December and January. There will be no Full Board Biomedical IRB 3 (Continuing Review) meeting on December 20, 2022 or January 3, 2023. Instead, after December 6, 2022, the next IRB 3 meeting will be held on January 10, 2023. IRB 2 (Cancer Board) will not meet on December 24, 2022 and will meet again on January 8, 2023. Please plan accordingly. Reach out to oprs.usc.edu with questions or concerns.