SUBJECT:

Contracts and Grants Update on Stimulus Package Proposals

As outlined in a recent Campus Notice, the Stimulus Package (SP) represents an unprecedented opportunity for UCSD principal investigators (PIs) to secure federal funding. The timeline for responding to the opportunities in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is short, as the intent is to stimulate the nation's economy. We anticipate that a significant number of agency funding announcements will become available this week, with the months of March and April targeted as the timeline for proposal submission.

The Office of Contract and Grant Administration (OCGA) is prepared to review and submit these fast-track proposals and is committed to ensuring that the process proceeds as smoothly as possible.

Submission will be via the federal government's Grants.gov web site. We expect that traffic on this site will be extremely heavy. Given that Grants.gov has recently had serious breakdowns, PIs are urged to finalize proposals for submission by OCGA a few days prior to their deadline dates.

It is not yet known whether exceptions will be made by the federal agencies to allow administrative and clerical salaries to be direct charged to these projects. We will keep you apprised of any news we receive on this subject.

Please check the Office of Research Affairs web site at http://research.ucsd.edu/economicstimulus.html for daily updates.

Arthur B. Ellis Vice Chancellor for Research