The scene is proving iconic for the pending action associated with the Budget Control Act that Congress passed, and the President signed, over a year ago.  We know that action as “sequestration.”

In short, because of real and growing concerns over the increasing debt of our federal government, our representatives in Congress laid out a series of control measures which, if not adopted by choice, would result in an automatic budget reduction of between 8.2% and 9.4% (for non-defense and defense discretionary budgets, respectively) on 2 January 2013. The action of sequestration was intentionally designed to be so aggressive and unpalatable that Congress would take more measured and reasonable approaches (presumably in the form of increasing revenue and decreasing spending, in some combination) well before that deadline.

Well, for a variety of reasons, including a contentious and highly charged series of election campaigns, that more measured solution didn’t transpire.

Speeding toward the cliff

Smart people are working to find a meaningful and implementable solution. This cannot simply be “voted down.” The fiscal problems are real (to paraphrase former Senator Everett Dirksen, “a debt of $1.2T is real money”).  But the realists also recognize that trying to solve this problem with a draconian cut would be like losing 8.2% of your body weight through decapitation: not a sustainable solution.

My own belief is that Congress and the President, through a mixture of deferrals and compromises on spending/revenue generation, will soften the blow of the immediate FY13 crisis (but I kid you not, there will still be a blow), while buying time to develop a more sustainable solution that won’t cripple the current economic recovery

. . . kinda like throwing a detour in front of Thelma and Louise.

For folks like us, working in a predominantly federally funded research environment (roughly 70% of our university research revenue comes from agencies in Washington) this means we WILL have to make significant adjustments We have estimated that, unmitigated, these prescribed cuts will translate to an initial single-year hit of $15M to OSU’s research portfolio (plus an additional $2M to other programs).

Rest assured, at President Ray’s request, the Research Office and the Office of Government Relations are trying hard to determine what the impacts of such adjustments might mean.  The problem is that nobody in DC is sharing much information about how each agency may choose to make their cuts.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released their ‘guidance’ for these cuts, at the request of Congress, last month (OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 (P. L. 112–155)): 394 pages of Excel spreadsheet wizardry, revealing nothing more than what appeared to be a “peanut-buttered” distribution of cuts at the previously indicated 8.2% and 9.4% level.

What will happen?

There are, however, many  rumors about how such cuts might be doled out.  Having worked in four different federal agencies myself (and having had five separate trips to DC in just a couple of months, recently), I am willing to guess about how this might play out.  I suspect those agencies that employ scientists in their own labs (DOE, Navy, NIH, EPA, USGS, etc.) will protect these “in-house” assets, at the expense of some of the extramural activities  – meaning even larger cuts to competitive research programs.  I also believe that agencies will try to soften the immediate blows to academic programs by simply deferring or delaying upcoming competitions, rather than rescinding actively funded programs. And I think we will see agencies trying to make surgical cuts to pare down to the bone those research projects that they still must continue to support, through efforts such as increasing matching requests, or perhaps even imposing salary caps (as some agencies already do). Let’s hope they don’t prescribe really dumb solutions, like reducing support for graduate students.

The real question:  What can we do ?  

The short answer is to develop as many options as possible. Start looking at your existing grants and prioritizing your expenses. Start thinking about alternative funding sources. The University’s success in growing our industry support for research (up by 42% in two years) is not an accident. If you haven’t thought about this route, let’s start talking, since there might be private sector funding out there to help accommodate reductions in federal support. Let us know if there are foundations that you want to try working with. The OSU Foundation has had some success in getting these kinds of resources to faculty on campus. Discuss this issue with your peers, your students and your academic unit, and with us in the Research Office.

We have a lot of very clever researchers at OSU. We’re going to have to apply some of the same creativity we use in our research to resolve this issue.

And, as a final thought, remember that this doesn’t go away.

Even if we soften the blow of the FY13 consequences, we still have another 10 years of budget reduction work at hand. The challenge is to find a smooth downhill off-ramp for Thelma and Louise.

Thank You

Rick Spinrad, Vice President for Research

Your comments to this posting are welcome.

The system for submitting funding proposals has been completely transformed. Over the past year, the Research Office has implemented a state-of-the-art electronic proposal system, Cayuse. Cayuse SP replaces the paper Proposal Transmittal Form, and is now used for all proposals.  Cayuse 424 is the Federal form set for both Grants.gov and Research.gov, and can also be used to prepare proposal budgets for proposals going to non-Federal sponsors.

Faculty should no longer be submitting paper-based proposals or the OSU Proposal Transmittal Form. Multiple training sessions have already been offered on the Cayuse products, and staff from the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) will continue to offer training sessions at least monthly. For information about training, please e-mail sponsored.programs@oregonstate.edu

OSP’s web-drop capability for Grants.gov packages is now disabled.  These proposals (with the exception of the submissions for OSU’s Statewide Public Service funds) should be prepared through Cayuse 424 and routed through Cayuse SP.  If you began proposal preparation in Cayuse 424 ,  contact an OSP staff member for assistance with proposal routing.

Sponsored Programs now has distinct teams to serve Oregon State researchers

• Aedra Reynolds, Dawn Wagner and Vickie Watkins support the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, the College of Forestry, and the units housed at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
• Eric Anundson, Cindy Rasberry and Lin Reilly support all other units.
• Please join us in welcoming Kim Reese as our  new friendly voice on the phone and smiling face at out front desk in Kerr 308B.

You will soon see a refreshed OSP website that should make our services and resources even more accessible.

-Pat Hawk
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs

• Effective July 1, 2012, all proposals will be routed through Cayuse SP.
  Faculty should no longer be submitting paper-based proposals or the OSU Proposal Transmittal Form.  Multiple training sessions have already been offered on the Cayuse products, and staff from the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) will continue to offer training sessions at least monthly.  An additional session for June has been scheduled for June 22, 2012, in MU 213, from 10:00am – 11:30am.   Faculty and staff can send an e-mail to sponsored.programs@oregonstate.edu to reserve a seat in this session.
• Also effective July 1, 2012 , OSP’s web drop capability for Grants.gov packages will be disabled.
  These proposals (with the exception of the submissions for OSU’s Statewide Public Service funds) should be prepared through Cayuse 424 and routed through Cayuse SP.
• Effective July 30, 2012, proposal routing in Cayuse 424 will be disabled, and all proposals will be routed using Cayuse SP.
  Any faculty that have begun proposal preparation in Cayuse 424 can contact an OSP staff member for assistance with proposal routing. 

  The Office of Sponsored Programs team of Aedra Reynolds, Dawn Wagner and Vickie Watkins support the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, the College of Forestry, and the units housed at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
  The team of Eric Anundson, Cindy Rasberry and Lin Reilly support all other units.

This reminder has also been sent to Deans, Associate Deans, and unit heads.
Please contact Pat Hawk, Director of Sponsored Programs (541-737-6699 or patricia.hawk@oregonstate.edu ), if you have any questions.

Pat

Patricia A. Hawk, Director
Office of Sponsored Programs

Now each year through a special program, more than 70,000 Oregonians of all ages - in all 36 counties and in 3 tribal lands – are educated to make nutritious food choices, engage in physical activity, handle food safely, and manage their resources so they have food at the end of the month.

Please join me in thanks and hearty congratulations to Sally Bowman, Core Director of the Parenting and Family Life Core of the Hallie E. Ford Center, who oversees the Oregon Nutrition Education Program, and the 130 OSU Extension Service faculty and staff who provide nutrition education around the state.

With a recent grant of almost $7Million from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service and a contract with Oregon Department of Human Services, they are reaching those who are receiving benefits or who are eligible for The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Education program

Sally is the Program Leader for Extension 4-H Youth Development and Family and Community Health. She has made many significant contributions over the years to address the needs of rural and vulnerable populations, on issues ranging from hunger to parenting. She received the L.L. Stewart Faculty Scholar award in 2009, and the Extended Education Faculty Achievement Award in 2004.

SNAP was formally known as Food Stamps. According to Sally, this program is now regulated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which will transform the SNAP-Ed program into a nutrition education and obesity prevention grant program.”

In 2011, the Oregon program had about 698,000 direct educational contacts with adults, families and youth, in series or single events. In addition, it reached 250,000 participants through demonstrations, displays, or newsletters.

Again, please join me in celebrating Sally’s past and ongoing accomplishments.

-Rick Spinrad
VP for Research

To succeed in an increasingly competitive funding environment, most major research institutions have invested in capacity for “research development”* – many have thus dramatically increased their research proposal success and revenue.

OSU’s Strategic Plan and supporting Research Agenda already lay out a broad vision for expanding the research enterprise and achieving international recognition. Last year an OSU task force led by Cherri Pancake studied best practices at other institutions and the background of and capacity for collaborative research at OSU. The group, including participants from six colleges and the Research Office, met throughout the year to develop recommendations for our research development, focusing on strategic support for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and proposals.

The resulting strategy is a complement and can jump-start our implementation efforts.  It is broad-based, for researchers at all levels. While I know that resourcing this strategy will be a challenge, many of the recommendations are immediately “actionable” with our existing resources, and there was excellent thought put into phasing for long-term success.

With appreciation for the fruitful efforts of the task force members (named at end of this blog  post), I am pleased to share below a brief summary.

• Facilitate development of large-scale proposals: Establish “strategic criteria” that can assess the institutional importance of particular large-scale proposals and develop a fast-track for expediting large proposals supported by selected and trained clerical staff that could evolve into a “SWAT team” providing proposal management services .

• Institutionalize our “lessons learned”: Track OSU’s experience, success rate and lessons learned with medium-to-large group proposals, and make information about funding successes and valuable contacts available to potential proposers.

• Position OSU to compete successfully on large-scale opportunities: Adopt mechanisms to bring in faculty who will engage in transdisciplinary activities and create flexible ways to credit/reward researchers participating in large scale proposals. Build relationships with Minority Serving Institutions, private sources and foundations to support these activities.

• Foresee and create new opportunities for large-scale research: Identify our “resource people” for foreseeing new opportunities and establish a mechanism for identifying in advance what solicitations for large-scale efforts will be emerging. Proactively “market” our research and cultivate relationships with agencies, foundations, industry, and private donors.

• Make interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary research an institutional priority: Make it part of the role and responsibilities of someone at the Research Office to take ownership of the future success of OSU’s interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research proposals. Establish metrics that reflect what is needed to achieve success and track progress toward success.

(Please note that the report does not imply that single investigator and/or single-discipline research are not valued at OSU,especially for less-experienced researchers. Many of the needs identified are also important to individual researchers, and the recommendations would have positive impact on them as well.)

Thanks again to the task force:(CAS) Susan Capalbo, Dan Edge; (CLA) Kathleen Dean Moore; (COAS – now CEOAS) Phil Mote; (COE) Terri Fiez, Cherri Pancake; (COF) Barbara Bond, Jim Johnson; (COS) Aaron Wolf; (Research Office) Pat Hawk

* Research Development encompasses a set of strategic, proactive, catalytic, and capacity-building activities designed to facilitate individual faculty members, teams of researchers, and central research administrations in attracting extramural research funding, creating relationships, and developing and implementing strategies that increase institutional competitiveness.

Research Development professionals initiate and nurture critical partnerships and alliances throughout the institutional research enterprise and between institutions—and with their external stakeholders. With the goal of enabling competitive individual and team research and facilitating research excellence, Research Development professionals build and implement strategic services and collaborative resources that span across disciplinary and administrative barriers within their organizations and beyond.

Research Development includes a broad spectrum of activities that vary by institution, including: funding opportunity identification and targeted dissemination, grant/contract proposal development, budget preparation, forms and submission assistance, research team building, interaction with funding agencies and institutional research administration and leadership, and outreach activities and training.

from National Organization of Research Development Professionals

 

If you are interested in the full report which includes specific recommendations, please contact the Research Office.
I am very interested in your responses and ideas, whether you are faculty, staff or student – please comment via this blog.

- Rick Spinrad
Vice President for Research

Now that we’ve finished the discovery process, Cayuse staff will program our customized system requirements for Phase II, which brings some nice features that we are sure faculty will appreciate:

• System-generated concurrent routing.  Currently, Cayuse routes proposals in a linear fashion.  With the Phase II implementation, a lead PI (or designee) starts the routing process and then the proposal will route concurrently between all units.
• Drop-down menus for agencies and F&A rates on the proposal summary form, making it easier to complete the summary form and describe where the project takes place.
• Division of indirect cost recoveries can be documented in the proposal record as part of the summary form.
• Listing of project personnel (co-PIs) will take place on the summary form as well as the agency forms.
• Additional data elements to assist in measuring international and industry partners.
• Additional data elements to assist in accreditation requests.
• Improved reporting capabilities.

These new features will not change how the Federal forms will be completed, and any additional training should be minimal.  In addition, The link to the Cayuse website is now more prominent on Sponsored Programs’ website.

We anticipate that a version will be available for testing in the Office of  Sponsored Programs in early January, with roll-out to campus in the spring.

While the Office of Sponsored Programs plans to retire the Proposal Transmittal Form at the end of June 2012,  some forms will still be required and  will remain on the Sponsored Programs website: F&A waivers; Attachment A – justification for direct charging clerical and administrative costs; and fabricated equipment.

Pat Hawk
Director, Office of  Sponsored Programs

link to Cayuse login

In order to provide a broader context, allow me to explain very briefly what F&A funds are, where they come from, how they really contribute to OSU’s overall financial health, and, most importantly, how they are distributed.

F&A funds are collected as a percentage of grant/contract expenditures. The University gets F&A based on actual direct grant expenditures. If you, as researchers, don’t spend it, OSU doesn’t get it.

The F&A funds are used to help defray the costs of activities that are essential for the conduct of research, but which cannot be charged directly to a grant. For example a laboratory may host multiple, separately funded research projects. It would be unrealistic to allocate space and meter utility usage for each project, so such expenses are “lumped” under the F&A rate. Similarly, the administrative costs associated with obtaining and managing grants are incurred at every level of the university, from departments and colleges, through the Business Centers and into the central administration.

So, why bother collect F&A at all? Don’t they just run up the costs of a grant and make us less competitive, and how can such a “small” amount of money contribute to the financial health of the university in any event?  Well, actually, F&A funds are a significant contributor to OSU’s budget. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, faculty research activities generated $36,358,254 of F&A funds. This is equal to almost half of the non-targeted, state-appropriated funds received from the legislature for fiscal year 2011.  In other words, the money recovered from F&A has a huge impact on our ability to serve all of the varied missions to which OSU is committed!

Next, how are F&A rates determined? The federal F&A rates are based on what we have actually spent to support federally funded research. The process: In conjunction with our federal oversight agency, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), a base fiscal year is identified. Upon closing of the base year’s books, OSU goes through a detailed analysis of research-related expenditures not attributable directly to grants or contracts.  This is done according to a strict set of rules and accounting principles; the university does not have much flexibility about what can be included. This analysis takes 4-6 months.  The results are submitted to DHHS, which reviews them for inappropriately included expenses. There is a negotiation to settle differences; then the agency tells OSU what our rate will be for the following 3 to 5 years. Typically, we end up with a rate that is one or two percentage points below what we believe is a reflection of our true costs.

If the grant/contract’s sponsor is a private corporation, the university tacks an additional 5% surcharge onto the F&A rate. This 5% supports the Office for Commercialization and Corporate Development, and is being used to develop a more robust campus-wide program of industry collaboration. This effort supports both the university’s Strategic Plan and our recently deployed Research Agenda. A more thorough discussion of this effort will be presented later this year.

So, focusing on just the federally negotiated F&A, how does it get distributed? The basic structure of the distribution has been in place for more than a decade, as outlined in the table below. The model for distribution is stable for the first four entries, but there is a bit of fluidity among the other categories from year to year.

The first cut taken out of the “F&A pie” goes to the Chancellor’s office – 4% of all of the F&A recovered by OSU. Each of the seven institutions in the Oregon University System pays the same percentage; however, OSU contributes more to this fund than all of the other OUS institutions combined. Those funds are used to support mandated federal and state reporting requirements among the other services provided by the system.

The next two categories of money, 8% for Research Equipment (RERF) and 4% for Building Use Credits (BUC), are mandated in our federal negotiation. While the university gets to depreciate capital equipment and facility expenses, we are not allowed to amortize the costs for federally funded equipment (i.e., we cannot charge equipment depreciation to a grant if that equipment was purchased using federal money). These allocations in the indirect cost rate are to help offset that depreciation.

A large allocation of F&A resources goes directly to colleges as Returned Overhead (ROH). Except for COAS and a few special cases, colleges receive 26% of the F&A earned from grant/contract indices assigned to each college’s organization code (Note: our financial system allows for distinct indices to be set up for different component parts of grants, and these indices can be aligned with different academic units.)  Deans have discretion about how to disperse the funds within their units. Some reserve all of it for strategic investments, some take a small slice and return the majority to the department or school that generated the grants, and some have more finely tuned distribution models. Check with your dean about how your college distributes its returned overhead.

The University library gets a flat amount out of the F&A pool, which amounts to about 2.3% of the F&A earning expected for FY2012.

Research centers and institutes draw on a percentage of the F&A. The majority of this is used to cover federal matching requirements, for example with our Sea Grant and Space Grant Programs, or to cover maintenance and safety costs associated with major facilities such as the Hatfield Marine Science Center that the university does not otherwise support.

A small percentage of our F&A, about 1%, is set aside to cover disallowed costs, i.e., items charged directly to grants or contracts that, upon review/audit, are determined to fall outside appropriate or allowable expenditures.  Thankfully, this is usually a pretty small amount.

In the last several years, the Provost has made strategic investments in the research enterprise. For example, the Provost funded multi-year transdisciplinary initiatives in six areas a few years ago, and, more recently, he has made significant investments in new faculty hires. More broadly, the Provost has provided ongoing support for major multi-college user facilities such as interdepartmental mass spectrometry, electron beam instruments, and laboratory animal resources. These are all large investments that benefit a broad spectrum of high impact, multi-user research facilities across campus.

The balance of F&A resources, about a third, are combined with the non-targeted, state-appropriated and tuition dollars; these are distributed as part of the base budget for units at OSU.

The bottom line here is that the majority of F&A dollars gets reinvested into academic units and the broader research enterprise, either directly through the ~31% allocation, or less directly through the distribution of RERF, BUC, Provost Initiatives, Centers and Institutes, and the university’s resource allocation model.  The F&A resources do not actually cover the costs OSU incurs for supporting research, but the money does make many things possible that would otherwise go undone.

OSU’s research enterprise collectively is a vibrant and high impact endeavor, all of which is made possible by the dedication and hard of each and every one of you, the members of our faculty. A great faculty is the first and most critical requirement for a great university, and you all play a huge role in that!  Thank you.

Rich Holdren
Associate Vice President for Research

On this trip I focused on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and on the Department of Defense.  OSU receives about $25M per year from NIH, and just under $3M per year from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).

Specifically, I visited leadership at the following agencies: AFOSR (Tom Russell, Director) , NIH Headquarters (Sally Rockey, Director of Extramural Research), National Cancer Institute (Peter Greenwald, Deputy for Prevention), National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Josie Briggs, Director), National Institute of General Medical Service (Jeremy Berg, Director), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Hugh Auchincloss, Deputy Director).  In addition, I  had the opportunity to meet with Karina Edmonds, the coordinator of technology transfer for the Department of Energy.

Your program manager

All of these meetings were quite helpful to get a sense of where agencies want to go.  Given the current budget uncertainties in the Federal government, any insight we can get should help us maintain our competitive edge.  I think it’s fair to say that every agency representative that I met with wants to increase their engagement with our research community.  Without exception, each of them implored me to have our faculty (junior and senior) develop – if they have not already done so – an active and meaningful dialogue with their program managers.

So my question for the researchers who read this blog is whether you’ve made that call recently.  H ave you spoken with program managers at your relevant agency?  Do they know what your interests are?  If you’re not sure whom to call, talk to your colleagues or let me know.

Another message that came through loud and clear was that we have some real opportunities to drive the agency agendas.  Dr. Russell at AFOSR defined a process by which we could develop some effective white papers to share with his program officers.  This is something I’d like to pursue with several clusters of faculty.  And, this is consistent with the next steps we need to develop consonant with the pending release of the OSU Research Agenda.

At DOE, Dr. Edmonds also made clear that her responsibility was to foster development of intellectual property, at the DOE Labs. From her standpoint, the partnering that  we have with the labs (e.g. with PNNL through MBI and ONAMI) is a model for how to engage academia. So my questions, then, given our other relationships with DOE labs (NETL, NREL and Idaho National Lab, as examples): Are there opportunities for commercialization that we might want to push?  Are there areas where we might want to build new partnerships with DOE labs, based on the potential for collaboration over new intellectual property?

I started the week in DC by sitting on a working group at the National Science Foundation, discussing the challenges of what NSF calls “unsolicited mid-scale research.”  The National Science Board will be developing a report on this subject within the next year, and we should keep an eye out for that report.

Please see our examples of  outcomes of Federal Agency support for OSU research

- Rick Spinrad
Vice President for Research

Subscribe to this blog for occasional announcements of updates.

To be implemented at OSU in phases over the next six months, the Cayuse system will be used for all research funding proposals, federal as well as non-federal. Using standard web browsers, researchers download electronic grant opportunities directly from Grants.gov or Research.gov and prepare the proposals in the web application.

Tools

The system’s productivity features include tools for preparing multi-year and multi-PI budgets, uploading research plans, importing subcontractor subaward proposals and budgets, copying and transforming proposals (e.g., templates), and routing and approving proposals. OSU’s use of the system will also include linking with protocols of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), reducing duplication of effort and information.

“This state-of-the-art tool will enhance our research enterprise. I am confident that Cayuse, an Oregon-based company with exemplary experience, will deliver the solutions we have been seeking. OSU is the first institution of higher education in Oregon to take advantage of this product.
We thank everyone who provided input on the demo sites, and especially appreciate the efforts of Jodi Pitzer of Procurement and Contract Services, and the evaluation committee:  Jan Auyong, Barbara Bond, Lois Brooks, Pat Hawk, Rich Holdren, Alex Sims, and Nicole Wolf. ”

-  Rick Spinrad, Vice President for Research

“Our office processes approximately 2000 proposals each year. An especially exciting feature of Cayuse 424 is the multiple-level error-checking, so it will detect details that are sometimes impossible to catch manually due to inconsistencies in requirements, volume and time constraints. This should eliminate having proposals returned without

review because of technicalities. Ultimately, it will reduce time and paperwork for faculty and staff. When OSU is the lead on a multi-institutional proposal, our subcontractors will be able to use our system free-of-charge. Another plus is that researchers will be able to not only develop but also track the routing of a proposal through the university system and to the funding agency.”

-Pat Hawk, Director of the Office of Sponsored Programs

Implementation

Testing, training, and implementation will be by college or unit, with the schedule soon to be determined. Cayuse will provide training to Office of Sponsored Program staff on-site in June, 2011.

The Company

Cayuse, based in Beaverton, Oregon has been creating software to streamline grant proposal development since 1994. Cayuse 424 is used at approximately 100 institutions in the U.S. The company was selected by the National Science Foundation for development of its electronic submission format to FastLane via Research.gov. Cayuse was the first to implement Research.gov’s electronic submission service, which is available in the production release at OSU.

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Comments are welcome
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Note: The Research Office -  Office of  Sponsor Programs is a separate administrative unit from the Office of Post Award Administration (OPAA).
Link here to learn the distinct services each offers during the lifecycle of a research proposal and award.
See also Research Administration Shared Responsibilities [pdf]

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The Office of Post Award Administration (OPAA) has updated its procedures for Principal Investigators to request no-cost extensions on sponsored agreements.  The Organizational Prior Approval System (OPAS) form has been significantly revised to reflect the changes in procedure and to provide researchers and Business Centers with instructions related to these changes.   This form will no longer be a dual purpose form; all no-cost extensions, not just those for awards which carry expanded authority provisions, will now be initiated with the revised form.  Requests for approval of pre-award costs and for establishment of pending indexes will be initiated with a separate form, soon to be revised as well.  The OPAS/No-Cost Extension form is required for all no-cost extensions and must be approved by your dean or department head.

The OPAA web site has been updated with the new OPAS/No Cost Extension form and instructions, as has the OSCAR list of downloadable forms.  The completed and signed OPAS form should be sent to the Business Center review/approval prior to the deadline as stated on the form instructions and should include adequate justification for the extension.   For further information, please contact your Business Center.