On March 11, President Trump submitted his Fiscal Year 2020 budget request to Congress.

For the U.S. Department of Education (U.S. ED), the FY 2020 Budget Request includes $64.0 billion in new discretionary budget authority, a 10% decrease from the FY 2019 appropriation. The FY 2020 budget request includes $13.5 billion for Special Education programs and $521.6 million for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The IES request is $93.9 million less than the FY 2019 appropriation. There are six major initiatives in the FY 2020 budget request for the U.S. ED.

For the National Science Foundation (NSF), the FY 2020 Budget Request includes $7.1 billion, a 9.6% decrease from the FY 2018 actual level and a 12.6% decrease from the FY 2019 enacted level. FY 2020 funding will support approximately 8,000 new research grants. In FY 2020, the NSF will continue to support science, technology, innovation, and workforce development as well as its 10 Big Ideas.

For the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the FY 2020 Budget Request includes a program level of $34.4 billion, a 12.5% decrease from the $39.3 billion received in FY 2019. The FY 2020 budget request includes for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) $1.6 billion; National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) $271 million; and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) $1.3 billion. In FY 2020, NIH will focus on three major areas.

Read more →

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is accepting proposals for the STATS-DC Data Conference, July 24–26, 2019 in Washington, DC. This year’s theme is “Providing Evidence to Drive Education.” The conference is free and open to the public.

The deadline to submit a proposal is Friday, April 19, 2019.

To submit a concurrent session or exhibitor proposal, please visit https://ies.ed.gov/whatsnew/conferences/?id=5024

Read more →

In the effort to streamline and target training for UF\Shands\VA researchers\research staff, effective March 21, 2019, the only IRB required training will be IRB Training (IRB803), which will be valid for three years. This training combines the content of CITI/NIH, HIPAA for Research, and IRB Local training. Every three years going forward, you will only need to complete the IRB803 training, which will be updated periodically. On average, this effort will shorten IRB required training by two hours.

As a reminder, UF IRBs review all research involving human subjects, data, or tissues. This includes research conducted off-site by university faculty and staff when acting as university employees or in connection with their university affiliation, as well as any work happening at a subaward or contractor’s site. Only the UF IRB (not the faculty, department, or DSP) can determine if your work is exempt from these regulations or agree to be covered by the subaward or contractors assurance.

Read more →

UFIT recently took delivery of a new storage system to replace the aging system currently in use. The new Qumulo storage system offers several options for researchers not in the current storage service, including the ability to easily scale-out the system if more space is needed for their files.

Read more →

Best wishes to Elizabeth Bondy for her proposals to the Alachua County School Board; Lynda Hayes for her proposal to the Florida Department of Education; Maya Israel for her subcontract proposal U.S. Department of Education Flow Through from the Technical Education Research Center; Justin Ortagus for his proposal to the Laura and John Arnold Foundation; Justin Ortagus for his proposal to the Joyce Foundation; Philip Poekert for his proposal to the Lafayette Parish School System; and Melissa Ralston for her proposal to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For more details, see the Submitted Projects table.

Read more →