As indicated in the UNE Return to Campus Plan for Employees (June 2020), “Employees whose positions do not involve direct work and support of students and whose work can be fully performed remotely will be asked to continue to work remotely until further notice”. As such, OSP staff will continue to support its customers remotely until further notice.
In the years prior to the pandemic, grant submission had become almost exclusively an online enterprise, which has made the transition to remote support much easier. At this time, all federal grant applications are submitted using one of the online platforms, such as ASSIST (NIH), FastLane (NSF), Grants.gov (Other federal) to name just a few. OSP staff are able to continue their core responsibilities of working with faculty to develop their grant applications, review them for consistency with UNE and funding agency requirements, and submit on behalf of the researcher through one of the online systems. Frequent Zoom meetings and email with researchers allow for efficient communications in all areas of grantsmanship. Further, all internal processes around grants that involve UNE approvals, can be conducted without paper routing. This includes circulating proposal transmittal forms (PDF signature), Purchase Orders, invoices for payment, Personnel Action Forms, etc.). While there may be a learning curve in conducting business in this fashion, OSP staff remain available to assist in any way possible. If you don’t know who your primary contact in OSP is, please refer to the Primary Application Review responsibilities chart at https://drive.google.com/file/d/106mRRJ08Ly3osq-IIb2dzFbRrWp8xvue/view.