2007
CUR Dialogues:
The 2007 CUR Dialogues --
"The Art of Grantsmanship" will be held March 8-11, 2007 at the Hilton
Mark Center, in Alexandria, Virginia.
This location is close to
Washington, DC, which allows participants to easily interact with program officers and grant
administration officers. Opportunities include:
-- Joining fellow faculty
members at all career stages, grants administrations and development officers in
discussion of grantsmanship.
-- Meeting
in small groups to talk one-on-one with program officer and grant administration
officer from NSF, NIH , DOE, NASA, USDA, as well as other agencies and groups.
-- Sharing ideas and networking
with colleagues
Attendance is limited to 300
participants. Early registration deadline is January 15th, 2007. Registration
materials and hotel information will be available shortly on the CUR Website.
For more information please
contact the Nancy Hensel at (202) 783 4810 or nancy@cur.org.
Brian Andreen Research
Fund
At
the CUR Annual Business Meeting held in June, proposals for use of the Brian
Andreen Research Fund
were reviewed, and it was decided that the Fund would be used to support one
student fellowship each year at the institutions of our CUR Fellows.
CUR Quarterly
Charlotte
Otto, Editor of the CUR Quarterly has announced the following themes for the
Quarterly:
March 2007 - Theme: Use of GIS in Undergraduate Research
Issues Editor: Linda Rueckert
June 2007 - Theme: Risk Management
Issues Editor: Kelly McConnaughay
Sept
2007 - Theme: Models of Undergraduate Research
Issues Editor: Linda Rueckert
Dec 2007 - Theme: The Many Faces and Places of Undergraduate
Research
Issues Editor: Kelly McConnaughay
Articles may be
sent to Charlotte Otto (cotto@umich.edu)
Submission
guidelines are
This institute will be
held in April (specific dates, TBA) at the University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor.
The purpose of the
institute is to provide new directors of undergraduate research programs
the means to develop and effectively administer their programs and to help
seasoned directors disseminate best practices and further build and
improve their programs.
This institute has the
following goals:
· To
provide models of effective UR Programs
· To
equip UR Program directors with a “tool-kit” of essential items needed
for running an undergraduate research program
· To
provide access to resources that are available for directors for
continuous development of their undergraduate research programs
· To
provide UR Program directors with “mentors” who are willing to provide
advice after the institute ends
· To
further develop a network of directors that will extend beyond the dates of the
workshops
· To
share with directors a variety of campus models that include broad
disciplinary scope and focus, and work with students at different stages
of their academic careers.
Please check the CUR
Website for updates on this Institute. The application will be
available shortly.
NOW AVAILABLE at www.whprp.org
The
Wildlife Habitat Policy Research Program (WHPRP) is soliciting Letters of
Intent (Due July 10, 2006) for
our competitive awards program. Application for the awards is open to
everyone.
The
WHPRP will fund eight specific projects in 2006 related to the implementation
of State Wildlife Action Plans and wildlife habitat conservation in the
United States
. Project
topics include:
- Analysis
of the Priorities, Obstacles and Opportunities that Exist for the
Implementation of
U.S.
State Wildlife Action Plans
- Analysis
of Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Wildlife Habitat in the
U.S.
- Approach
to Developing Performance Measures for
U.S.
Habitat Conservation
- Design
of
U.S.
Habitat Banking Systems
- Analysis
of
U.S.
State and Local Policies
- Estimation
of
U.S.
Habitat Conservation Costs
- Assessment
of
U.S.
Habitat Conservation and Provision of Ecosystem Services
- Development
of an Operational Benefit Estimation Tool for the
U.S.
The
WHPRP's mission is to develop and disseminate new information and tools to
accelerate the conservation of wildlife habitat in the
US
. The WHPRP sponsors work that is of the highest technical quality and also
relevant to the needs of policy makers, administrators, resource managers,
practitioners, and landowners.
Based upon the Letters of Intent, three candidates for each project will be
invited to submit full proposals for external review. Awards are
expected by November 1, 2006 and will range from $25,000 to $250,000 each,
depending on the project. Further information, full project
descriptions, and instructions for Letters of Intent are available
at: www.whprp.org.
The WHPRP is a program of the National Council
on Science and the Environment (NCSE), an independent, not-for-profit NGO,
dedicated to improving the scientific basis for environmental decision-making.
Please contact Christina Zarrella at czarrella@ncseonline.org
or 202.207.0007 if you require further information. The WHPRP program is
supported by a four year grant by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF).
This is the fourth column by Washington Partners to appear in CUR E-News. The National
Office would appreciate your suggestions for topics that you wish to
learn more about and information that you need about federal legislation
and funding. Please send comments to nancy@cur.org.
Please note the Washington Partners legislative alert(s).
Washington
Partners News:
Action Alert:
Call your Senators and ask them to request support for programs at the
National Science Foundation in the FY2007 Commerce, Justice and Science
(CJS) Appropriations bill. If
your Senator is on the CJS Appropriations Subcommittee, ask them to take
direct action.
With Congress in the
middle of its July 4 recess, it is important to take a quick review of
what has occurred in the annual appropriations process and what is
expected to take place later this summer and early fall.
Looking forward, an
important fact to keep in mind is the Congressional schedule.
The House and Senate will be back in Washington, D.C. on July 10th
and will work through the end of the month.
The Senate is actually expected to work a few additional days
into August. At that point,
both bodies are in recess for the remainder of August and will not
return to the Capitol until after Labor Day.
The House and Senate will work through the end of the fiscal year
on September 30 and are expected to adjourn sometime in early October.
Although the deadline to complete all appropriations bills is
September 30, this is rarely met.
What happens after
September 30th remains to be seen.
Why? – the November elections.
In November, every member of the House and one-third of the
Senate is up for re-election. These
mid-term elections, especially when the political environment has been
particularly divisive to begin with, means that neither party wants to
make their Members take a “difficult” vote nor do they want to let
the other “score” a political victory, possibly giving the
opposition party an advantage for the elections. As a result, more legislation gets bogged down in partisan
rhetoric and less and less is accomplished.
So what needs to get
done? Representative Jerry
Lewis (R-CA), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, started
off the year with the goal of completing all 11 appropriations bills
before the July 4th recess.
The House has passed 10, including the Science, State, Justice
and Commerce (SSJC) bill, which funds programs at the NSF.
The bills that have been passed are:
- Agriculture
– H.R. 5384 – funds the Department of Agriculture.
- Defense
– H.R. 5631 – funds “regular” activities at the Department
of Defense. Activities
in Afghanistan and Iraq are funded via “emergency”
appropriations legislation.
- Energy
& Water – H.R. 5427 – funds aspects of the Department of the
Interior and the Department of Energy.
The Department of Energy contains significant funding for
research at higher education institutions, however the bulk of this
funding is directed towards graduate and post-graduate work.
- Foreign
Operations – H.R. 5522 – funds humanitarian and foreign
aid-related activities.
- Homeland
Security – H.R. 5441 – funds the Department of Homeland
Security, which oversees the activities of many smaller agencies.
- Interior
& Environment – H.R. 5386 - funds the Department of the
Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The bills also funds the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
- Legislative
Branch – H.R. 5221 – funds the activities of Congress.
- Military
Quality of Life – H.R. 5385 – funds programs that aid military
veterans as well as funds military construction programs.
- Science,
State, Justice and Commerce – H.R. 5672 – funds the Departments
of State, Justice and Commerce as well as the NSF, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institute
for Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
- Transportation,
Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Judiciary and District of
Columbia – H.R. 5576 – funds the Departments of Transportation,
Treasury and Housing and Urban Development.
The bill also funds the federal judiciary system and provides
funding for the entire District of Columbia.
The remaining bill is
the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor-HHS-Education)
bill, H.R. 5647. The Labor-HHS-Education bill is relevant for two reasons: 1)
it funds the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and 2) it contains
language-related to increasing the minimum wage.
The bill funds the NIH
at $28.3 billion. This is a
slight increase over FY2006 and represents a 120 percent increase in
funding over the past ten years. A
significant portion of these funds are used for research grants at
higher education institutions across the nation.
While having no
significance to undergraduate research, the minimum wage language is
important due to the politics that surround it.
During the bill’s full committee mark-up, Democrats offered and
passed an amendment to increase the minimum wage.
Many Republicans object to this, although enough moderate
Republicans, particularly those in more difficult election campaigns,
supported the amendment so that it passed in Committee.
Increasing the minimum wage would be seen as a significant
victory for Democrats, meaning it has little support among many
Republicans. Therefore,
House Leadership must decide how to address the minimum wage amendment
before the Labor-HHS-Education bill is considered on the floor.
Due to the delay in the
Labor-HHS-Education bill, Democrats attempted to attach similar minimum
wage language to other appropriations bills, including the SSJC bill.
Their efforts failed, but it showed the Democrats’
determination to increase the minimum wage.
Many believe similar attempts to increase the minimum wage will
be made in the Senate on a number of appropriations bills.
This has the possibility of significantly delaying appropriations
work in the two chambers.
The Senate has not yet
considered any of its 12 annual appropriations bills (the Senate has one
additional bill than the House due to differing subcommittee
structures), but official work has started on several bills.
The most relevant bill in the Senate is the Commerce, Justice and
Science bill (CJS), which funds the NSF.
The CJS bill is tentatively scheduled for a subcommittee mark-up
on July 11 followed by a full committee mark-up on the 13th.
The Senate CJS
Appropriations Subcommittee was allocated approximately $51 billion to
spend on the bill. The $51 billion is $7.8 billion less than the previous year
(FY2006). In terms of
comparison, the equivalent House Appropriations Subcommittee had $2.6
billion more to spend in FY2007 relative to FY2006.
The Senate
Appropriations Committee is holding its cards relatively close to its
collective chest, leaving virtually no indications on how the $51
billion will be spent. We
do know that some of the funding will be made up when the bill comes to
conference with the House, but the fight for funding in the Senate is
particularly critical - this is why writing your Senator is so
important.
Looking to the future,
much is speculative, but here is what we know.
The House will most likely pass the FY2007 Labor-HHS-Education
appropriations bill sometime this July or possibly in September.
It is not clear if the bill will pass with or without the minimum
wage language. If the
minimum wage language is attached, this will put significant pressure on
the Senate to include equivalent language in one of their appropriations
bills – possibly delaying the process.
In terms of the CJS
bill, the Senate has to consider several pieces of
non-appropriations-related legislation as well as debate and pass other
appropriations bills, including Homeland Security and Defense.
Mostly likely, the Senate will debate and pass the CJS bill
before September 30, however there is a chance that the bill might not
move until after the November elections.
If the bill is not
signed into law by September 30, it does not mean that the NSF and other
agencies will shut down. In
this scenario, Congress will pass what is known as a “continuing
resolution” which means funding will continue to be disbursed at the
same rate as the previous fiscal year until the FY2007 appropriations
bill is passed and signed into law.
The remaining wild card
is the November elections. If
the appropriations bills are not all passed and signed into law by
November and one or more chamber switches control to the Democrats, then
all bets are off. Democrats
could, if they choose, work to block legislation passed by a
“lame-duck” Congress and start over in January. Although this is very speculative, it is not out of the realm
of possibilities and should be considered.
