October 2013, Volume XIII, Number 4

Federal Government Shutdown Effect on Grants

The federal government’s FY2014 fiscal year begins today, but no funding agreement is yet in place. Therefore, noncritical and nonessential services of the federal government are shut down for now.

How will this affect your current federal funding? Granting agencies will not take any actions on grant or contract awards, and some agencies will send a notice to their grant awardees stating that no payments will be made during a shutdown.

National Institutes of Health: Regarding administration of current NIH grants, HHS' NIH staff will not be available to provide routine administrative services. HHS will, however, maintain the Payment Management System in an operational status to continue processing grant drawdown requests. Given that you have received your award prior to the gap in funding, you may be able to continue drawing funds from prior awards during an appropriations lapse. If you received your notice of grant award with restrictive terms and conditions, or if your drawdown request triggers one of the Payment Management System edit checks and/or the drawdown limit controls, you will not be able to drawdown funds.

If you are considering submitting an application for additional HHS federal assistance funding, please be advised that the Grants.gov system will be operational during a lapse in funding and will be accepting applications from prospective grantees. However, for NIH applications the Grants.gov system will only accept and store applications. Applications will not be processed further until such time as the authority and funding to return to normal business operations are restored.

All Federal Government Agency Contingency Plans are posted online. The page will be updated as more plans are posted.

External Awards Reports

→ August 2013 Awards

August 2013 Awards by Sponsor Type:

August 2013 Awards by Purpose:

A Flawed System for Judging Research is Leading to Academic Fraud

As China tries to take its seat at the top table of global academia, the criminal underworld has seized on a feature in its research system: the fact that research grants and promotions are awarded on the basis of the number of articles published, not on the quality of the original research. This has fostered an industry of plagiarism, invented research and fake journals that Wuhan University estimated in 2009 was worth $150m, a fivefold increase on just two years earlier.

Chinese scientists are still rewarded for doing good research, and the number of high-quality researchers is increasing. Scientists all round the world also commit fraud. But the Chinese evaluation system is particularly susceptible to it. → Read more in The Economist (9/28/13)

Disruptive Technologies Series: 50 Disruptive Companies, 2013

Published by the MIT Technology Review, the 50 Disruptive Companies package looks at the "rich variety of ways that innovations get commercialized," according to Brian Bergstein, deputy editor. "Each company on this list has done something ... that will strengthen its hold on a market, challenge the leaders of a market, or create a new market." → Read more

› See additional News, Events & Upcoming Deadlines on the ORA web site.

The Office of Research Administration at the University of Missouri-St. Louis publishes The UMSL Innovator once each month. The online and e-mail publication is designed to inform the campus community of grants received; highlight the research and commercialization accomplishments of UMSL faculty, graduate students and staff; and provide information on important deadlines and events. Also included is recent news about research and commercialization at the University and elsewhere. Recipients are UMSL faculty, students and staff. E-mail wilgerst@umsl.edu if you have questions, comments or suggestions on content.

The Office of Research Administration provides leadership and support in the development, execution and operation of programs in sponsored research, technology transfer and economic development throughout the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

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