The RDS team suggests contacting us for support on ARPA-H submissions well before submitting a solution summary or proposal, as their programs and requirements frequently change. We are keeping up to date with these changes and can help your submission meet current requirements.

Background

Mission: The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) accelerates better health outcomes for everyone by supporting the development of high-impact solutions to society’s most challenging health problems.

Who They Are: ARPA-H advances high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that cannot be readily accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity. ARPA-H awardees are developing entirely new ways to tackle the hardest challenges in health.

Contact

This contact form can be used to connect with ARPA-H directly.

Mission Office ISOs

The four current ARPA-H focus areas translate to four mission offices. Each mission office has its own Innovative Solutions Opening (ISO) to replace the previous Open BAA. Interested applicants should submit their proposal to the Mission Office ISO that best fits their subject matter.

All Mission Office ISOs require solution summaries prior to a full proposal and have a closing date of March 3, 2025.

Health Science Futures (HSF)

Expanding what’s technically possible. Accelerating advances across research areas and removing limitations that stymie progress towards solutions. The tools and platforms developed apply to a broad range of diseases.

Proactive Health (PHO)

Keeping people from being patients. Reducing the likelihood that people become patients. Preventative programs will create new capabilities to detect and characterize disease risk and promote treatments and behaviors to anticipate threats to Americans’ health, whether those are viral, bacterial, chemical, physical, or psychological.

Resilient Systems (RSO)

Building integrated health care systems. Developing capabilities, business models, and integrations to endure crises such as pandemics, social disruption, and economic instability. Resilient systems need to sustain themselves between crises, from the molecular to the societal, to better achieve outcomes that advance American health and wellbeing.

Scalable Solutions (SSO)

Reaching everyone quickly. Addressing challenges that include geography, distribution, manufacturing, data and information, and economies of scale to create programs that result in impactful, timely, and equitable solutions.

Current Programs and Exploration Topics

Note: Solution summaries and full proposals are due at varying times of day on due dates depending on the program. Be sure to confirm these times on each program’s program page, linked in the table below.

The Research Communications team supports UConn faculty and researchers with the following communications deliverables and services:

• UConn Today Stories
• Press Releases
• Website update (for ovpr.uconn.edu and ovpr.uchc.edu only)
• Social Media Posts or Graphics
• Design Project
• Presentation Decks
• Photography/Videography
• Social Media Training
• Communications Etiquette Training
• Other Special Projects

To request any of the above, please fill out our support request form, and our team will be happy to assist you.

The proposal budget is the financial plan of action that reflects the costs required to perform the proposed work statement. The following information has been prepared to help you develop your budget plan. It is important to demonstrate that the budget proposed is reasonable. 

A budget justification should be submitted to allow for each budget category to be explained relative to the proposed research. The budget justification explains how the estimated costs for the categories were derived and explains the need for the cost. Budgets should be prepared for the entire proposed project.  

While our budget sheet template has been designed to make it easy for an applicant to complete it on their own, we encourage all applicants to consult with their local grant administrators to ensure that budgets are correctly completed.  Faculty in CLAS are asked to reach out to clasgrants@uconn.edu to work with the Grant Management Services (GMS) team to complete the budgets for internal funding program applications.

Download and save the budget sheet template to your computer: OVPR_Internal-Funding_Budget-Template_FY26-for-FY25-competitions

 The following categories are generally included in the preparation of a proposal budget: 

• Salary: List all personnel, including the names and roles devoted to the project. 
• Fringe benefits: Automatically computed on the budget sheet template except for ‘other,’ refer to Storrs/Regional Fringe Benefit Rates and UCH Fringe Benefit Rates. 
• Equipment: Tangible, non-expendable, individual property having an anticipated life of one year or more with a unit acquisition cost of $5,000 or greater. For information see equipment definitions on the accounting website. 
• Travel (transportation & Per Diem): Includes any travel necessary to conduct research (in support of specific project aims). For information on travel procedures and processes, see the travel website. 
• Materials & Supplies: Any consumable not falling into the category of equipment, as defined above. 
• Participant Support: Indicate incentives, travel, and other subsistence costs necessary for the project. 
• Animals/Animal Care: Animal costs should reflect the type of animal, the number of animals and the unit cost per animal. Per Diem costs should list the number of days of Per Diem. Please refer to OAC for per diem rates. 
• Contractual Services: Fees and charges for specialized services, such as library access fees, laboratory analysis fees, consultant fees, subject fees, etc. 

General guidelines regarding allowable/unallowable costs that are consistent with other OVPR internal funding opportunities. If you have a budget need that does not fit within these guidelines, please reach out to the OVPR Research Development Internal Funding team at research@uconn.edu to discuss options.  

Allowable costs include:  

• Graduate Research Assistants
  • AY Graduate Research Assistantships (20 hour/week).  Can choose GA level and specify percentage effort on the project.
  • Summer. You may request up to $2000 per student per annum.
• Postdoc or other research assistant/technician salary 
  • Postdoc stipends should follow the NIH NRSA stipend levels. You may enter the base salary of each postdoc and record the postdoc’s effort percentage on this project.
• Student Labor. Undergraduate student labor is paid on an hourly basis, plus fringe benefits. Please refer to the student employment website for levels of experience and compensation. Please enter the total amount you are budgeting for all undergraduate student labor costs
• Summer Fellowships. Storrs/regional campus faculty members on nine-month appointments may receive salary during the summer months. A maximum of $3,000 per award (plus fringe) may be requested for single PI proposals and $5,000 per award (plus fringe) for Multi-PI proposals (limit $3K per PI). The request for summer funds must be carefully justified. For more information, contact the OVPR. 
• Course buyouts   
  • Course buyout may be requested for Storrs/regional campus faculty, but the PI must explain why release time is vital to the project. Faculty requesting funds for course buy-outs must include a statement of support from the department head.
    • ‘The department supports a course buyout for ‘PI name’s’ application for the ‘award name’ program entitled ‘project title,’ under the OVPR’s terms for the inclusion of course buyouts in internal funding awards.’
  • Amount requested cannot exceed the minimum per-credit adjunct rate for the course being replaced.  For more information, contact the OVPR.
  • Limit of one per PI (Principal Investigators) per project
  • Please refer to the payroll department.
• Fringe costs 
• Equipment purchases 
• Travel to conduct research or meet with collaborators (travel approval may be required) 
• Materials and supplies 
• Participant support costs 
• Animal/animal care costs 
• Contractual services (including fee-for-service contracts with partner institutions)  

Unallowable costs include:  

• Subawards to partner institutions 
• Faculty member salaries 
• Clerical or administrative personnel salaries 
• Including personnel whose primary purpose is to explore funding sources and/or prepare grant applications 
• Service/maintenance contracts on equipment 
• Laboratory renovations, or other infrastructure renovations 
• Institutional memberships in professional organizations 
• Computers, laptops, tablets, or other standard office equipment (computers that serve a specialized research function beyond what standard office equipment can provide are allowable) 
• Travel to professional meetings to present the results of the research 
• Travel to explore extramural funding opportunities 
• Costs associated with the publication of results of the research including page charges, purchase of reprints, or journal costs. 

Frequently Asked Questions During a Lapse in Appropriations (White House)

Agency Contingency Plans

UConn Sponsored Program Services is closely monitoring developments in Washington, D.C., and evaluating the likelihood of a federal government shutdown and its potential impact on UConn research activity. The U.S. Government is currently operating under a Continuing Resolution, which extends the deadline for passage of spending bills through midnight December 20, 2024.

In the event of a federal government shutdown (as in previous instances), researchers with active federally sponsored grants and contracts will generally be instructed to continue work unless the project requires significant involvement of federal employees. Investigators may receive instructions from their contracting or program officers; if you receive such information, please notify your SPS award management contact immediately (links below).

Based on past shutdown experience, SPS anticipates the following potential impacts on sponsored programs operations:

Proposals and Application Systems

We expect that some agencies will not be available to process proposals and that others will retain submitted proposals for processing when normal operations resume. If you are preparing an application or progress report for an upcoming submission deadline, please continue to prepare those documents for an on-time submission; however, we encourage you to monitor further updates for specific guidance and the potential for those deadlines to be extended.

• Proposal preparation systems are expected to remain online during a shutdown, though proposals may not be processed by agencies until normal operations resume. Watch for announcements from agencies for extensions of deadline dates. There is a possibility that the Grants.gov Contact Center will remain available; however, it is unclear if all Help Desk systems will remain functional.
• Peer reviews and study sections are not expected to occur, which may impact faculty who serve as reviewers, and may result in potential delays in start dates for those whose proposals are awaiting review if the shutdown is prolonged.
• Agencies will likely not issue new notices, awards, or other actions during the shutdown.

Award Management

In general, researchers with active federally sponsored grants and contracts will be instructed to continue work, but the following exceptions are noted:

• Personnel working in federal labs/facilities, and possibly on cooperative agreements and joint awards may receive notification that they are not permitted to work on associated awards during the shutdown.
• Faculty working at a federal agency on an interagency personnel agreement (IPA) should immediately contact the agency to determine next steps.
• “Stop Work” orders may be implemented for federal contracts, in which case employees can no longer be paid with federal funds allocated to that contract.
• Final reports should be submitted on time if sponsor systems are operational.

Federal personnel WILL NOT be available, though each agency may articulate emergency contact procedures. Federal personnel will not be available for scheduled campus visits or project status meetings.

Agency Contingency Plans are available, though no sponsor-specific guidance on how a potential federal government shutdown may impact submission of new or competing proposal submissions has yet been provided.

SPS will continue to monitor agency-specific communications regarding a potential shutdown and provide detailed updates and specific guidance via this page and email.

Storrs SPS Contacts

UCH SPS Contacts

After awards are made and the project has been completed, the OVPR (Office of the Vice President for Research) would like to evaluate project progress and to learn more about the impact of the work that has been done. Please email research@uconn.edu with a 1–2-page narrative that includes the following:  

• Cover: title, team, funding mechanism, date of award, etc.  
• Summary (brief): of the project aims/goals and the results to date.  
• Project Outcomes (if relevant): publications, grant applications, grant awards, invention disclosures, patents, other “products.”  
• Project Impacts (if relevant): discipline impacts, institutional impacts (students, teaching, infrastructure etc.), economic impacts, community impacts  
• Anticipated next steps (if relevant): follow-on projects, dissemination plans, external funding strategy, commercialization, etc.  

 After the award period ends, we are interested in receiving updates on outcomes from the award. We understand that the full realization of many projects may appear sometime after the funded work is complete. After this initial report is submitted, we will contact you in the future for updates on the project’s longitudinal impacts.   

SCRO Registration Form

SCRO Amendment Form

SCRO Completion Form

The SCRO Committee is scheduled to meet quarterly but can be convened as needed in between scheduled meetings. Submission Deadline: For new registrations, please submit all required materials at least 4 weeks prior to the scheduled meeting date.

For additional resources, please check out the following links:

• International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR)
  • ISSCR Guidelines
• National Academy of Sciences Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) Stem Cell Guidelines
  • NIH stem cell information
  • NIH stem cell research policy and FAQs
  • NIH human embryonic stem cell registry
• Connecticut Department of Public Health
  • Connecticut general statute — embryonic stem cell research
• UConn Stem Cell Core
  • UConn Stem Cell Core’s distribution of human pluripotent stem cell lines
• California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
• The Jackson Laboratory — stem cells
• The Hinxton Group

The SCRO Committee does not replace the oversight of the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC), Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or Institutional Review Board (IRB), or alter the scope of review of these committees. Protocols that normally require IBC, IACUC and/or IRB approval continue to require these approvals. Investigators have the responsibility of submitting the required documents to the relevant oversight committees. If any component of the research project is conducted at an institution other than UConn, the SCRO Committee must receive documentation that the relevant approvals (IBC, IACUC, or IRB) have been obtained at the institution where the research is conducted.

The SCRO Committee has the final sign-off on stem cell protocol approvals. Final SCRO Committee approval will not be given until the SCRO Committee receives documentation of all required IBC, IACUC and IRB approvals. Continued SCRO approval is contingent upon all other relevant approvals being current. Parallel review with the SCRO Committee and the IRB, IBC or IACUC is permitted. Investigators may submit their protocol applications to the SCRO Committee while IRB, IBC or IACUC approval is pending or after it is granted.

• IBC: All use of recombinant DNA or hazardous biological materials (human cells) must be approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee at the campus where the research will be conducted.
• IACUC: All use of animals must be approved by the IACUC at the campus where the research will be conducted.
• IRB: Because oversight issues of the IRB and the SCRO Committee are intertwined, it is recommended that the IRB and SCRO Committee reviews occur in parallel. Approval must be obtained from the IRB at the campus where the research will occur. Investigators should submit a copy of their IRB application to the SCRO Committee along with their SCRO Committee application. A UConn IRB must review and approve stem cell research protocols for:
  • Informed consent for the donation of human embryos, gametes, or somatic cells from human subjects to UConn researchers;
  • Receiving and coding for human biological materials with personal donor identifiers;
  • Implanting stem cells into human subjects.

Documentation for acquired cells

All stem cell projects are required to have proper documentation for the hESC and hiPSC lines that faculty plan to use before the SCRO Committee can provide final approval.

• Cells derived at another institution or outside UConn require an executed Material Transfer Agreement (MTA).
• Cells coming from the UConn Stem Cell Core facility but developed and owned elsewhere such as the WiCell Stem Cell Bank lines that are banked at the Core require a shortened Materials Transfer Agreement (MTA) known as a Short Letter Agreement (SLA). The procedures for obtaining these cells and the required documentation are detailed on the Core website: https://health.uconn.edu/stem-cell-core/services/distribution-of-human-pluripotent-stem-cell-lines/.
• Investigators who plan to use hESC/iPSC lines that have not been previously approved by the UConn SCRO Committee must provide documentation of their provenance and their ethical derivation. This documentation includes:
  • A copy of the fully executed Material Transfer Agreement (MTA)
  • Evidence of IRB approval at the relevant institution
  • Documentation of the informed consent process in sufficient detail to allow for evaluation of conformity with State of Connecticut Regulations, National Academy of Science Guidelines, and standards of the UConn SCRO Committee and IRB.