FAQs

University employees and students travel internationally for many reasons, and different export control issues arise  depending on the nature of your travel:

• Attending an International Conference or Meeting

• Presenting at an International Conference

• Conducting Research Abroad

• Collaborating with Colleagues or an International Entity

• Teaching, Training or providing Other Services Abroad

When you travel internationally in your role as U-M employee or student, you must register your travel with the U-M Travel Registry. Registering travel with the U-M Travel Registry is also encouraged for personal trips. The U.S Department of State also allows you to record information about your planned trip so that they can assist you in case of an emergency.

If your destination is subject to U.S. embargoes, the U-M Travel Registry will automatically send your travel information to the Export Control Program, and you will be contacted to assure your travel complies with export regulations. If you are traveling to or through any other destination that is subject to other travel restrictions, you will need to talk to the Export Controls Program to ensure your travel complies with U.S. export control regulations.  

Destinations currently subject to the most comprehensive US embargoes include:

• Cuba

• Iran

• North Korea

• Sudan

• Syria

• Crimea region of Ukraine

Even if you do not need an export license to travel to your destination, you may need an export license to conduct certain activities in specific countries or to take certain items with you.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are planning to travel to Iran for a meeting or conference, you will need to obtain an export license prior to your trip. You should contact the Export Control Program immediately to allow time to apply for the license.

No. This is an often-heard misconception. The unit's cost-sharing is determined before the OVPR review takes place. Although the end result may be that the unit and OVPR each contribute the same amount toward the cost-sharing, matching is not automatic.

About $3 million in the Vice President's annual budget is specifically designated for cost-sharing. Most of the requests are for amounts in the range of $10,000 to $50,000. When requests for very large amounts of cost-sharing appear justifiable, the Vice President consults with the other executive officers to determine if other University funds can be made available for the requested purpose.

As defined in the FAR at 2.101, a micro-purchase is an acquisition of supplies or services using simplified acquisition procedures, the aggregate (total) amount of which does not exceed the micro-purchase threshold.

6-1.1: Click Update for each animal that will be administered LPS

--Provide the requested information regarding dosage and routes of administration.

--Note that animals administered LPS may be housed at ABSL1.

6.1: Each type of animal that you will be administering LPS to must have an entry in this list. Add entries, if needed, and be sure to provide the following information in the detail questions:

--Q5: Answer “yes” here.

--Q8: Answer “yes” here as well.

--Q8.1: Select LPS from the list. (If you do not see LPS in this list, check your response to Q13 of the detail questions for LPS in Section 4-2: it must be “yes”.)

Q4.2: Answer “yes” here.

Q4.3: Be sure to include in this response a description of your work with LPS.

4-2.1: Create an entry for LPS in this table

--Q12: Note that work involving LPS requires BSL2 containment/handling.

--Q13: If you will be administering LPS to your animals, answer “yes” here.

Be sure to answer "yes" to the option for Infectious Agents/Biological Toxins.

Visit http://research-compliance.umich.edu/irb-application-process Email: irbhsbs@umich.edu. Phone: 734-936-0933. Please note that it must be accessed via U-M's eResearch Regulatory Management (eRRM) system: http://eresearch.umich.edu. Phone: 734-764-HELP (764-4357). A list of compliance contacts can be found here: http://research-compliance.umich.edu/sites/default/files/eccontacts_web.pdf.

Be sure to register your travel and check any policies here: http://global.umich.edu/travel-resources/ and http://research-compliance.umich.edu/international-travel-export-controls.

Visit the Responsible Conduct page: http://research-compliance.umich.edu/responsible-conduct-research-rcr-training as well as the PEERRS Portal: https://research-compliance.umich.edu/peerrs-portal/  

Unfortunately, we cannot accept résumés and applications for graduate programs or research opportunities. Find application materials on the Rackham graduate programs website or follow the employment application procedures on the University of Michigan careers/job postings site. Do check the eligibility requirements for any programs you see. Many summer research opportunities are only available to U.S. Citizens.

Your first point of contact should be your department's research administrator. You can find that person here: Find a Research Administrator (Blue Pages).

Jobs and internships are arranged through the academic department or posted on http://careers.umich.edu.

We do not keep research publications for loan or purchase. If published, it may be available via the National Institutes of Health PubMed Central or our U-M library. For citations, please use standard citation methods.

You can look up your ORSP Project Representative here. 

Your first point of contact should be your department's research administrator. You can find that person here: Find a Research Administrator (Blue Pages) You can use our Project Representative lookup table here. 

Contact Tricia McCain Ebright at UMORlimitedsubmissions@umich.edu.  

Leverage the Research Development and Proposal Services from the U-M Office of the Vice President (OVPR) for Research along with:

• Research Commons, a website that promotes internal funding opportunities.
• View archives or subscribe to the Research Blueprint, a newsletter that shares funding announcements, workshops, Limited Submissions opportunities, and more. (If you have an opportunity for OVPR to share, send it to fundingopps@umich.edu(link sends e-mail).)

U-M LIBRARY - RESEARCH FUNDING AND GRANTS GUIDE

The U-M Library's Research Funding and Grants Guide indexes university-wide listings of funding opportunities and resources with content from all units, schools, and colleges. Utilized databases such as ProQuest's Pivot to create email alerts to keep you informed of new opportunities in your research area.

Schedule a consultation with the exceptionally skilled Informationists of the U-M Library, who offer personalized, expert funding and grant search consultations to U-M faculty and staff.

Check the U-M Library's http://funding.research.umich.edu for funding databases. There, you can arrange a consultation with a librarian who can help you with resources. If applying for funding, your next point-of-contact should be your department's research administrator. You can find that person here: Find a Research Administrator (Blue Pages). 

Research and internship opportunities are available for enrolled students. You can find graduate program application materials on the Rackham website (http://rackham.umich.edu). For undergraduate admissions go to http://admissions.umich.edu.

Media may contact public.affairs@umich.edu.

The U-M Office of Research has a Research Development team dedicated to sharing external funding opportunities through a monthly newsletter called Research Blueprint, along with the new Research Commons website (currently in the "soft launch" phase and under development).   If you would like to share any internal funding opportunities or to be added to the newsletter distributions list, please email at fundingopps@umich.edu.

Yes, but only for human subjects protections regulatory training.  One commonly accepted equivalent is the basic or refresher courses for either biomedical or social-behavioral human subjects protections from the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI).

The equivalent training must have been completed within the past 3 years and cover content similar to PEERRS content.  Certifications from CITI must include the following, at a minimum:

U-M may accept another (non-CITI) course as a human subjects protections training equivalent upon ad-hoc review.  

To request a waiver for equivalent training, submit a certificate showing the course completion date and a list of course topics through the Request a PEERRS Human Subjects Certification Waiver form.

Yes, if you are engaged (i.e., interacting with the participants and/or their identifiable data) on a U-M human research study you may need to complete the PEERRS Human Subjects Research Protections (HSP) course or show proof of equivalent training.

  At U-M, HSP training is tracked only for those non-UM investigators who qualify to be listed on the IRB application; otherwise training requirements and oversight are handled by the investigator's local IRB.

If you have completed an equivalent human subjects protections training course (e.g., CITI) at your institution within the past three years, submit the training certificate to PEERRS to obtain a training waiver.  See Request a PEERRS Human Subjects Training Waiver for instructions.  

If you have not completed an equivalent training course:

1. Establish a U-M Friend Account using your current email address at:   https://friend.weblogin.umich.edu/friend/.  This email address will be your Login ID for PEERRS/My LINC.
2. Request PEERRS access.  See the PEERRS Access Request Form for instructions.
3. Upon confirmation that PEERRS access has been granted, select the Human Subjects Research Protections course from the PEERRS Portal and log into My LINC to complete the course.

For your PEERRS credit to display in the U-M IRB application (HUM), the email address used as your U-M Friend Account Login ID and the email address associated with you in the IRB application must be the same.

If you are the Principal Investigator on an award funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), you are responsible for having and carrying out a training plan with undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral trainees working on the project.  This training plan must:

• Explain the nine Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) components as it applies to the research discipline (e.g., engineering, botany, biomedical research)
• Include face-to-face instruction

As the PI, you may choose to use PEERRS course as RCR pre-requisites, but per NSF regulations, online instruction (such as PEERRS) cannot be the sole method for RCR training.

Yes. It is not a requirement to hold PEERRS certification prior to sumbmitting a research transaction (e.g., PAF, HUM, TCP) for review by a U-M central office (e.g., ORSP, IRB Offices).  However, the required training must be completed before that transaction can be awarded or approved.

To receive PEERRS course credit, you must read every page in the course and pass the certifaction test or complete the attestation.

Before you start

1. My LINC works best with Internet Explorer or Safari web browsers.
2. Turn off your web browser's pop-up blocker to ensure that the PEERRS course will open.  Courses display in a separate window.

At then end of a course:

Click the exit button to close the course.  The Exit button is located under the menu icon.  Exiting the course transfers the completion information and assessment/attestation results to the My LINC database and records your credit in the course.

Other U-M offices may check PEERRS certification status as part of audit or misconduct investigations, including: University Audits, the Office of Research Compliance Review (ORCR), and the OVPR Research Integrity program.  School/colleges may check student and trainee certification status if utilizing PEERRS courses as a part of their unit-based Responsible Conduct of Research curriculum. 

Topics covered each day of the course can be found on the Modules Map.
 

The Call for Intent to Submit process relates to the many Limited Submission funding opportunities that exist. There are at least 250 funding opportunities each year from various sponsors that are limited. We don't need to reserve competition dates for each opportunity if interest does not exist. So we prepare a weekly communication listing opportunities and asking for a show of hands to determine interest.  If interest exceeds the sponsor's institutional limit, the U-M Office of Research may hold an internal Limited Submissions Competition and announce it at a later date. 

We now communicate both the Calls for Intent to Submit and the Limited Submissions in a single communication.

To be informed of the opportunities we have identified, you can sign up for our Weekly Call for Intent and Limited Submission communication.  

Interested parties declare their interest for a Call for Intent to Submit and/or submit competition materials for a Limited Submission competition, through our InfoReady website.  

For questions, contact umorlimitedsubmissions@umich.edu.

A Limited Submission is a funding opportunity in which the sponsor sets an institutional limit for the number of proposals it will accept. The sponsor limits the number of proposals accepted per institution (e.g. only one proposal from the University of Michigan).

In order to participate, the University must organize to submit our most competitive proposal. This requires an internal competition. The process is critical extra submissions can result in the rejection by the sponsor.

To be informed of the opportunities we have identified, you can sign up for our Weekly Call for Intent and Limited Submission communication.  We now communicate both the Calls for Intent to Submit and the Limited Submissions in a single communication.

Interested parties declare their interest for a Call for Intent to Submit and/or submit competition materials for a Limited Submission competition, through our InfoReady Limited Submissions website.   For questions, contact umorlimitedsubmissions@umich.edu.

Your Unit Administrator takes care of that through eResearch. Our Blue Pages pull from the eResearch data warehouse so the work is seamless for us and reflects your updates. If you are that individual and don't know how to do this, you can call 4-HELP  and touch 3 to get open a ticket and get instructions on how to make the changes. 

The Blue Pages pulls its data from eResearch. If you find the information here is not up to date, your unit liaison can update it in the Reviewer and Unit Liaison Workspace of eRPM. Here are links to ITS's step-by-step guides:

• Manage Department Information
• Unit Liaison Home Workspace

If so, then be sure to select the option on this page for research involving human-derived substances. Note that BSL2 containment/practices is required for all work involving human-derived substances.

If your IACUC protocols include EITHER transgenic animals, OR administration of rDNA, infectious agents, biological toxins, or human- or certain animal-derived substances to any kind of animals, be sure to select those options on this page. That work must be represented in your application.

If you are no longer conducting work that is described in a currently approved IACUC protocol, let us know when you submit your new IBC application. Otherwise, we will contact you for clarification before assigning your application for review.

If so, then be aware that creating an application is NOT the same as amending your registration.

Once your IBC application is approved, your current IBC registration will be withdrawn:  be sure that your new application includes any work from your current registration for which you wish to maintain approval.

What if I’m no longer working with the recombinant DNA that is described in my current registration?

If you are no longer conducting work that is described in your current IBC registration, let us know when you submit your new IBC application. Otherwise, we will contact you for clarification before assigning your application for committee review.

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For questions on the Award Managment Functionality project, please contact AWDMGT-CoreProjectTeam@umich.edu or 734-936-1284.

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After review, testing, and communications, we plan to launch August 2018. The timeline includes:

• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) - June 2018
• Training - July 2018
• "Go Live" - August 2018

ORSP in conjunction with Sponsored Programs, ITS-eResearch, and the research units is developing new award management functionality in eRPM with the goal to:

• Streamline the award management processes;
• Create greater flexibility in the relationship between PAFs and Awards (AWDs);
• Increase the visibility of award details and related items (e.g., individual funding commitments, compliance factors, required deliverables);
• Provide consistent award data between eRPM and U-M’s financial system (M-Pathways); and
• Enhance the “big picture” view of sponsored awards at the University of Michigan.

The U-M Office of Research maintains a list of publications and news sources. All U-M faculty and staff receive Michigan Research. Be sure to sign up for the Research Blueprint. If you know of other newsletters that we should list, please contact orsp-communications@umich.edu. 

The University of Michigan Office of Research (UMOR) coordinates the U-M Human Research Protections Program (HRPP) with collaboration from the following offices and more:

• U-M IRB offices
• Office of Research Compliance Review (ORCR)
• Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP)
• Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR)

For a complete list, see the HRPP Operations Manual, Part 2 - Organization

AAHARP is interested in your awareness of and knowledge about key concepts and policies, including, but not limited to:

• Human Subject Regulations such as, the Common Rule (45 CFR 46), FDA regulations, the Belmont Report, and Conflict of Interest policies
• Human subject protections and the procedures you use to implement them such as elements of informed consent, strategies for minimizing risk, adverse event and unanticipated problems
• The strength and effectiveness of the HRPP, including education and training, adequacy of resources for researchers, researcher accountability, HRPP structure, and perceptions of the HRPP

The specific questions the AAHRPP site visitors ask will depend upon your role within the U-M HRPP.  Review the interview guide for your role to prepare for the AAHRPP site visit.

AAHRPP, the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs, Inc., is an independent organization that reviews and accredits institutions engaged in human subjects research to protect the rights and welfare of the research participants.

AAHRPP accreditation bolsters the university’s reputation as a leader in human subjects research.  Research sponsors and other research partners increasingly consider AAHRPP accreditation before pursuing collaborations, or providing funding, for research.

U.S. export control regulations also identify certain countries that are subject to a comprehensive embargo or targeted sanctions.  

Definitions: 

• Comprehensive embargoes prohibit all exports/imports and other transactions without a license or other U.S. government authorization.  
• Targeted sanctions are prohibitions on trade in specified goods, technologies, and services with specific organizations (including foriegn governments) and persons.

Resources:

The list of countries per regulation (i.e.,  ITAR, EAR, and OFAC) and the sanctions change.  Use the following links to the federal resources to obtain the most current information.

• ITAR: Country Policies
• EAR:  Country Chart (PDF)
• OFAC:  Sanctions Program and Country Information 

The software U-M uses for the Restricted Party Screening process simultaneously searches the following restricted party lists, which are also combined in the U.S. government Consolidated Screening List.  The links below go to the federal web pages that further explain the purpose for each list and contain links to download the list.

Department of State (ITAR):

• Nonproliferation Sanctions - Parties that have been sanctioned under various statutes regarding weapons proliferation. Note:  the Federal Register is the only official and complete listing for nonproliferation sanctions determinations
• AECA Debarred List - Entities and individuals prohibited from participating directly or indirectly in the export of defense articles, including technical data, and defense services

Department of Commerce (EAR):

• Denied Persons List - Individuals and entities that have been denied export privileges. Any dealings with a party on this list that violate the terms of denial are prohibited.
• Unverified List - Individuals and entities who the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has been unable to verify in prior transactions. The presence of a party on this list does not necessarily mean that the transaction cannot go forward, but it is a "red flag" that must be resolved prior to proceeding with the export. 
• Entity List - Parties whose presence in a transaction can trigger a license requirement supplemental to those elsewhere in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The individual listing specifies the requirements and policy for each party.

Department of Treasury (OFAC):

• Sanctioned Program and Country Information - Details the export controls restrictions (e.g., embargoes, targeted sanctions) to specific individuals, organizations, and countries
• Specially Designated Nationals List - Details individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, sanctioned countries. It also lists individuals, groups, and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under OFAC sanction programs that are not country-specific.  Export Adminstration Regulations (EAR) require a license for exports or re-exports to any party on this list whose entry contains the following suffixes:  SDGT, SDT, FTO, IRAQ2, or NPWND.