NSF Cooperative Agreement

NCAR’s primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation (NSF) with whom UCAR has signed a new five-year cooperative agreement for the management of NCAR. The NSF Cooperative Agreement (effective from October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2013) includes terms and conditions to UCAR and NCAR on the management and operation of NCAR’s core funded activities as well as funding received from other agencies. UCAR and NCAR are responsible for full compliance with all financial/ administrative and programmatic terms and conditions as stated over the life of the cooperative agreement. Topics related to proposals within the cooperative agreement include: application of the UCAR Fee on work supported by other agencies, conditions for interagency transfers, non-NSF funding, foreign activities, maintaining proposal records, use of NCAR facilities, and awardee governance, to name a few.

Throughout the NCAR Proposal website and various proposal guidelines, we refer to the terms and conditions within the NSF Cooperative Agreement so your understanding of these terms and conditions is important to the proposal process. With that in mind, we’ve highlighted the text within the cooperative agreement that is most applicable to proposal processes. The highlights are displayed in green and we have linked this document here for your easy reference. (NSFcoop.agree.pdf) At a minimum, we request that NCAR personnel, involved in the proposal submission process, familiarize themselves with the relevant NSF Cooperative Agreement criteria that we have highlighted. You are encouraged to review the entire NSF Cooperative Agreement.

For a more comprehensive version of the cooperative agreement including all terms and conditions cited within the coop, see the Sponsored Agreements web page: https://www.fin.ucar.edu/contracts/sa/internal/ATM-0753581.pdf.

Sponsored Agreements has merged the NSF Cooperative Agreement with the Financial/Administrative Terms and Conditions (FATC) and the Financial/Administrative Terms and Conditions for FFRDCs (FATC/FFRDC).

If you have any questions concerning the text within the Cooperative Agreement, please contact either ncarprop@ucar.edu or sacon@ucar.edu.

President’s Advisory Committee on University Relations (PACUR)

Formerly University Relations Committee (URC)

The President’s Advisory Committee on University Relations (PACUR) is a committee of individuals from our member universities that helps maintain good communication and relationships between the Corporation and members. The PACUR acts as an advisory committee to the UCAR President, proposing agenda items for members' meetings and proposing activities and programs for UCAR to undertake.

To ensure that NCAR maintains an alliance with the community when proposing for funding over and beyond its NSF core support, a process was established to review NCAR’s non-core proposals. This review process is important for several reasons: it provides a method to verify NCAR’s compliance with the established criteria, provides an assurance to the university community that there is no unfair competition, serves as a mechanism to encourage collaboration between NCAR and the university community, and allows the committee to make recommendations on improving UCAR’s internal review process.

This review is currently administered by a subcommittee of PACUR, which was appointed in April 1993. The rotating subcommittee, usually comprised of three to four university members, conducts a biannual retrospective review of all non-NSF and NSF competed proposals over $100,000. The proposals are reviewed against an established set of criteria, developed in collaboration with PACUR, NCAR, UCAR and NSF. The subcommittee selects a representative sample of proposals across all divisions/labs and collaboration levels for review.

In addition to reviewing non-core proposal documents, the subcommittee reviews proposal trends and metrics to determine areas of improvement, such as collaboration with the university community, graduate student involvement in projects, etc.

Criteria for Proposals for Non-Core Funded Activities

UCAR proposals for non-core funding must: (1) be mission appropriate, (2) use UCAR facilities fairly, (3) be collaborative or community service oriented, and (4) identify co-sponsorship levels. To determine whether proposals meet these criteria, UCAR staff must provide the following information:

1. Mission Appropriate. Explain how the proposal supports the research, facilities, education and/or leadership objectives and strategic plans of the appropriate entity within UCAR (e.g., UCAR, NCAR, UCP, or E&O).

2. Fair Facility Use. Identify which UCAR facilities will be used for the proposed activity: (check all that apply)

    • High-Performance Computing,
    • Observational,
    • Research Data,
    • Community Models,
    • None

Explain how the proposed activity does not utilize these facilities in a way that is not available to the typical university investigator.

3. Collaboration Level. Identify the collaboration type (pick a, b, c, or d) and provide the requested explanation:

    a. Joint (e.g., separate proposal from UCAR and each university institution). No further explanation needed provided the proposal is clear as to how it supports and complements the community.

    b. Collaborative with funding to or from university partner. No further explanation needed provided the proposal is clear as to how it supports and complements the community.

    c. Collaborative with no funding to or from university partner. Describe in detail the nature of the collaboration including letters of collaboration. The collaboration should be significant and meaningful. The level and scope of the collaboration must be clearly stated (including graduate student participation if applicable) in both the Advance Notice Forms and in the letters of collaboration. In addition, it must be clearly stated how this collaboration is supportive of and complementary to the university PI.

    d. No University Collaboration. Explain how the proposed activity supports and complements the university community through: 1) contribution to the development or support of community facilities, community models, community data sets, or other community projects such as field programs, workshops, visitor programs, or community meetings, or 2) development or transfer of UCAR-developed technology or expertise to the scientific community or to society at large with demonstrable benefit to the community and to society.

4. Co-sponsorship Level. (NCAR Proposals Only) Describe and justify any activities that are co-sponsored by NSF Base Funds (i.e., NCAR funds from NSF that contribute to research sponsored by other organizations -- NOAA, NASA, etc).

(Revised and Approved by PACUR in April 2007)

PACUR Review & Meeting Schedule

As mentioned earlier, PACUR conducts a biannual review of NCAR’s proposals and holds a meeting twice a year to discuss the results of the review. The proposals are reviewed after they have been officially submitted to the sponsoring agency. The review cycle is conducted on a calendar year basis as detailed below:

1st six months of the year:

  • Proposal Submission Dates: Proposals submitted from January 1 to June 30.
  • Proposal List Submitted to PACUR: July
  • PACUR Meeting: October (in Boulder)

Last six months of the year:

  • Proposal Submission Dates: Proposals submitted from July 1 to December 30.
  • Proposal List Submitted to PACUR: January
  • PACUR Meeting: April (Off-site)

Procedure for PACUR Subcommittee on Proposal Review

The procedure that the subcommittee follows for reviewing NCAR proposals was developed by Ken Pickering, former Chairman of the PACUR subcommittee.

The following procedures are designed to support the PACUR review process:

1. UCAR provides the PACUR proposal review subcommittee chair with a list of NCAR non-core proposals over $100K that were submitted since the last review. The list of proposals will be put into two categories: (a) proposals for which a university scientist was PI or proposals for which an UCAR researcher was PI, with university scientists as Co-Is or collaborators; and (b) proposals involving no direct university involvement. This list should include the proposal number, name of the division/laboratory, sponsor, date submitted, title, collaboration level, requested amount, co-sponsorship amount, and leveraging ratio (where there is NSF base-funding).

2. The subcommittee chair has the discretion of reviewing all proposals or may select a representative sample of proposals from the various NCAR divisions/laboratories and category 1.b.

3. The subcommittee chair notifies UCAR of the selected proposal numbers. The Advance Notice, cover pages, letters of collaboration, and budgets for each of the selected proposals are sent to the subcommittee members. A copy of the proposal review criteria is also sent to the subcommittee members.

4. The subcommittee reviews the material listed above with regard to the criteria and discusses their reviews via a conference call or e-mail. At this time, if more information is required on a specific proposal, the subcommittee may request that the complete proposal be provided to them. The subcommittee should contact the relevant NCAR entity representative to address specific questions or general concerns that arise during their review.

5. Based on the subcommittee members input, the subcommittee chair writes a draft report. That draft is circulated to subcommittee members and NCAR for comment and clarifications. The report should contain a summary of:

    a. The compliance of the proposals with proposal review criteria and the resulting conversations with UCAR/NCAR management.

    b. The representativeness of the sample proposals selected vs. the total number of proposals in each NCAR division/lab and in terms of the dollar value of the proposals.

    c. Any subcommittee conclusions or recommendations.

6. Four weeks prior to the PACUR meeting, the report is submitted by the subcommittee chair to UCAR Governance office for distribution to NCAR for their review and any final response to questions that the subcommittee may have had on the proposals. It is expected that any issues will have been addressed by interactions mentioned in step four and five.

7. NCAR’s response is sent to the subcommittee chair no later than two weeks before the PACUR meeting, and then is distributed by the chair to the subcommittee members. The subcommittee reviews these comments and engages NCAR as needed. A goal is to resolve any issues prior to the subsequent PACUR meeting.

8. Subcommittee chair presents the final report at the PACUR meeting along with NCAR’s responses and any further subcommittee comments or needed actions identified.

9. The PACUR Chair presents a PACUR report at the UCAR Annual Meeting that summarizes the proposal review process and outcome for the prior year and any other relevant matters.

For further information, please refer to the UCAR Governance website below: http://www.ucar.edu/governance/committees/urc/subcom.shtml

(printable version - pdf)

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