Dear Colleagues,

I want to call you attention to some new federal compliance requirements. As of July 31, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will require ALL participants in NSF grants (this includes PIs and senior participants too) to receive appropriate Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) training. We have created an ad-hoc committee of faculty and research administrators (including senate representatives) to establish a process to fulfill this requirement per NSF guidelines. The requirement is essential to complete the CITI online courses the students and postdocs in NSF grants already needed to complete plus some addressing NSF new requirements on mentorship. I want to emphasize that the training need not be completed at time of submission but by the time an award is made and people start working on it. I am fully aware of the growing concerns among PIs about the burden of federal compliance. I believe this is a solution that balances the additional effort, the new regulations, and the proper importance we want to give to RECR on our campus. Most other UC campuses are adopting similar solutions.

Please see the attached memo for additional information