From cynthia.johnson at ucr.edu Tue Mar 24 16:33:53 2026 From: cynthia.johnson at ucr.edu (Cynthia J. Johnson) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:33:53 -0700 Subject: [Research] Agency News, Funding Opportunity, and More Message-ID: *~~ Please disseminate this information with those researchers and research administrators in your department who may find it noteworthy ~~* *AGENCY NEWS* *NIH Example Scenarios Regarding Reportable Monetary Donations * Dear Colleagues, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires Principal Investigators (PIs) and senior/key personnel named on NIH proposals and awards to regularly disclose the resources available to their research endeavors. *We are writing to alert you to recent NIH guidance clarifying when monetary donations must be reported as ?Other Support.?* In September 2025, NIH issued the example scenarios here: https://grants.nih.gov/sites/default/files/NIH-Examples-Scenarios-Monetary-Donations.pdf . The examples make clear that NIH considers gifts that are designated, whether by the donor or the University, to support an individual?s research to be reportable. The examples describe different scenarios in which ?donated money? is placed ?into an account used to fund the research of the investigator.? The examples indicate that investigators should be looking at the purposes of their gift funds to determine what is reportable. Gift funds with terms broader than a specific investigator?s research (e.g., support for general operations or broader research infrastructure) may not require reporting, depending on the facts and circumstances. As background: - NIH guidance has long stated that ?Other support does not include training awards, prizes, or gifts. Gifts are resources provided where there is no expectation of anything (e.g. time, services, specific research activities, money, etc.) in return. An item or service given with the expectation of an associated time commitment is not a gift and is instead an in-kind contribution and must be reported as such.? - In March 2025, the US Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Inspector General issued a report stating: ?NIH?s guidance documents do not convey how specific or explicit a donor?s expectation must be for monetary donations to be considered other support rather than a gift.? The report concluded that NIH should clarify which monetary donations must be reported. - In response, NIH issued the example scenarios of monetary donations that must be reported. Note that the NIH?s definition of a ?gift? differs from, and does not align with, the University?s definition, meaning that the same funding may be classified differently under NIH guidance than under UC policy. This clarification has operational implications for campus advancement teams: 1. When reporting to NIH, investigators must include gifts that are designated for their research. It will be important to understand which gift funds are designated (whether by the donor(s) or by campus allocation/reallocation processes ) to an individual?s research. 2. Investigators and research administrators may begin requesting information about gifts that need to be reported, including fund purposes and gift totals. 1. Regarding pledges, the Other Support FAQs note that pending resources must be reported based on the project period. 2. Situations where campuses reallocate funds containing gifts from multiple donors to support a specific PI?s research may present reporting complexities and will require careful review. 3. Campus websites and internal documents related to NIH reporting may need to be reviewed and updated to reflect NIH?s clarified position. We will continue to share additional guidance as it develops and plan to discuss this in our Friday Gift & Endowment Policy call (March 20, 10am). In the meantime, please feel free to circulate this information within your campus. Best, Oriel Oriel Nolan-Smith Director of Gift & Endowment Policy Institutional Advancement University of California, Office of the President Oriel.Nolan-Smith at ucop.edu *NIH Salary Cap* Congress legislatively mandates a limitation on salary for individuals under NIH grant and cooperative agreement awards. The amount of salary that can be provided to an individual through grant and cooperative agreement funds cannot exceed Executive Level II of the Federal Executive Pay Scale (Office of Personnel Management Salaries & Wages ). The Office of Personnel Management recently released new salary levels for the Executive Pay Scale. *Effective January 1, 2026, the salary cap limitation for Executive Level II is $228,000.* This mandate applies to both direct salaries (individuals working directly on NIH projects) and indirect salaries (executive salaries in various uncapped cost pools). For active awards, including awards that have been issued in FY 2026 (continuation and new) that were restricted to Executive Level II, if adequate funds are available, and if the salary cap increase is consistent with the institutional base salary, recipients may rebudget funds to accommodate the current Executive Level II salary level. Recipients may not draw down funds, whether direct or indirect costs, to pay salaries above the salary rate limitation, and recipients must have established policies and procedures that are consistently applied regardless of the source of funds. Please refer to the UCR Academic Personnel Website for UCR-specific guidelines on the updated NIH Salary Cap rate. (Here is a direct link to the guidance: pdf ). *DoD Dismissed its Appeal Regarding Proposed 15% Indirect Cost Rate Cap* Good news! UC Legal has advised that the Department of Defense (DoD) dismissed it appeal to retroactively apply a 15% indirect cost rate cap on sponsored projects. Accordingly, please *utilize the indirect cost rates currently approved* in UCR?s Federally Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA), dated April 9, 2024, for DoD proposals. Note: *The ?reservation of rights? language previously provided by UC Legal for inclusion in proposals should NO longer be utilized.* *BARD FUNDING OPPORTUNITY* From: *sarai at bard-isus.com * Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 4:02?AM Subject: BARD Accelerator Extension Dear colleagues, In light of the current situation, we are extending the deadline for submitting pre-proposals for the *BARD Food Security Accelerator Program* *.* This extension is intended to ensure that all applicants have sufficient time to complete and submit their materials. The new pre-proposal submission deadline will be *May 1, 2026. *In accordance, the new full proposal deadline is July 27, 2026. We appreciate your understanding and flexibility, and we hope this adjustment will support everyone during this challenging time. We wish to note that those who have submitted proposals to the 2026 BARD Research Tract for and do have potential collaboration with commercial entities (in Israel and in the US) are also eligible to submit proposals to BARD Food Security Accelerator Program. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns. Sincerely, Sarai Kemp Sarai at bard-isus.com *Office Hours: Kuali Sponsored Programs* Please join us for the Kuali Sponsored Programs Office Hours which meets on the *first and third Thursday* of each month from 9 ? 9:30 a.m. via the following *new ZOOM link*: https://ucr.zoom.us/j/91549349837?pwd=7acOMgGLk5bLVMXyHSPMSkHPTo0bhA.1&jst=2 . *We hope to see you there!* *Kuali Award Closeout Request - Update* As discussed in last week?s Kuali Sponsored Programs Office Hours, the new Kuali Award Closeout Request process has been temporarily halted for workflow process improvements, namely the development of a separate routing/workflow process for unfunded agreements (e.g., material transfer agreements, non-disclosure agreements, data use agreements, memorandum of understanding and other non-cash agreements) while maintaining the current workflow/approval process for the closeout of funded agreements. RED will utilize this pause to incorporate additional enhancements into the revised Kuali Award Closeout Request form and then conduct additional testing before placing the revised form into production prior to fiscal year end. Please stay tuned. *Research List-Serv* Do you know of someone in your department who is not currently registered to receive newsletters (such as this one) from the Research listserv, but would like to? If so, please forward their name and email address to Cynthia Johnson at cwells at ucr.edu. *Calendar* * Friday, March 27* - Campus closed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: