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You are here: Home / Funding Opportunities / Grant Application Information / Application News and Updates

Application News and Updates

April 2, 2009

Changes to the FY 2009 Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) Request for Applications (RFA)

As of April 2, 2009, pages 19, 25, and 26 of the SCRI RFA have been modified to address several inquiries regarding the implementation of section 736 of the FY 2009 Ominbus Appropriations Act (Pub. L. 111-8) which was enacted on March 11, 2009 and the use of unrecovered indirect costs to meet the matching requirements for this program in FY 2009.  Applicants may use both the unrecovered indirect costs associated with the Federal Budget and the unrecovered indirect costs associated with the Non-Federal Budget to meet their matching requirements.  However, indirect costs may not be recovered on third-party matching contributions.

In short, applicants may use both the unrecovered indirect costs associated with the Federal Budget and the unrecovered indirect costs associated with the Non-Federal Budget to meet their matching requirements.  However, indirect costs may not be recovered on third-party matching contributions.

See the modified pages of the RFA for additional information.  The RFA as well as other information, including frequently asked questions (FAQs) are available at http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/scri/scri.html.

March 13, 2009

CSREES Modifies Specialty Crop Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program

In accordance with the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act,  for the purposes of a grant made under section 412 of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998, which established the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), in-kind support from non-Federal sources in the form of unrecovered indirect costs may be used to meet the matching requirements under 412(e)(3). These indirect costs are those that are not otherwise charged against the grant and must be consistent with the approved indirect cost rate of the organization. This constitutes a change for the program and the SCRI request for applications (RFA) has been modified accordingly. CSREES announced $47.3 million in FY 2009 funds available for the SCRI.  The SCRI was established to solve critical industry issues through research and extension activities. Specialty crops are defined as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture. SCRI will give priority to projects that are multistate, multi-institutional or trans-disciplinary, and include explicit mechanisms to communicate results to producers and the public. Applications are due April 15. Please refer to the updated SCRI Matching Fund FAQs and the updated SCRI RFA for more information.

March 9, 2009: Overtaxed Grants.gov Web site may create submission delays

March 9, 2009

Overtaxed Grants.gov Web site may create submission delays

Grants.gov is experiencing an extraordinarily high volume of users. The Grants.gov system is configured to handle a peak of 2,000 simultaneous users. Lately, they are seeing as many as 3,000 simultaneous users by mid-day. When the system is used by such a high number users, it continues to operate but more slowly. Moreover, accessing Grants.gov is extremely difficult causing submissions not to be posted by the required dates and times.

Institutions using Grants.gov early in the morning typically experience minimal difficulty. If you wait until later in the day you may experience signigicant difficulties with your submission.

We recommend that you do not wait until the last minute to try and submit your applications. Also, we recommend that you avoid peak hours of 11:00 AM EDST to 8:00 PM EDST timeframes whenever possible. These two recommendations will hopefully help you avoid the problems that others are experiencing using Grants.gov.

If you should experience difficulties with your submission, be sure to contact Grants.gov and obtain a case number. This number can be used by you to justify a late submission with CSREES should that occur. CSREES is aware of the Grants.gov system difficulties and is trying to be accommodating as much as possible.

Grants.gov is working on this issue and will hopefully resolve it soon.

February 23, 2009

CSRESS is currently transitioning from PureEdge Forms Packages to Adobe Forms Packages. PureEdge Forms are intended to be completely phased out by March 3 in conjunction with the retirement of these forms on Grants.gov. For the remainder of Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 and the foreseeable future CSREES will be posting and processing electronic applications using Adobe Forms Packages.

Please note that Adobe Forms can be processed and submitted using Adobe Reader or Adobe Professional. The acceptable versions of Adobe Reader are 8.1.1 or higher and the acceptable versions of Adobe Professional are 8.1.1 or higher. While all of these versions work with processing and submitting Adobe Forms packages, it is recommended that you use Adobe Reader Version 8.1.3 as this version tends to cause the least technical issues.

Visit the Grants.gov blog site http://grants-gov.blogspot.com/ for the latest news on technical issues and system status.

 
 Questions? Comments? Last Updated: 04/02/2009