SARI Info for Grant Proposals

The National Science Foundation published a notice on August 20 that it is now implementing Section 7009 of the America COMPETES Act. The notice is available at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-19930.htm.

Effective January 4, 2010, NSF will require each institution that applies for NSF funding to certify that the institution has a plan for RCR training and oversight of students who will be participating in the proposed research. The Penn State SARI Program will meet these requirements, and although our SARI program targets graduate students, the components for RCR training that are in place will be suitable for, and available to, undergrads and postdoctoral fellows (who are included in the NSF requirement).

Please feel free to copy and paste the language below in your grant proposals, or anywhere that a description of the SARI Program is required. As always we will be happy to provide assistance or answer questions; just contact sari@psu.edu.

Penn State’s Scholarship and Research Integrity (SARI) program is designed to offer graduate students comprehensive, multilevel training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR), in a way that is tailored to address the issues typically faced by individual disciplines. SARI programs address topics such as publication practices and responsible authorship, conflicts of interest, research misconduct, peer review, mentoring, data management, collaborative research, human subjects protections, and animal welfare. In general, SARI programs address these issues through two initiatives: an online RCR training program offered by CITI (Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative) to be completed in the first year of graduate study, followed by five hours of discussion-based RCR education. All graduate students at Penn State, who matriculated in fall of 2009 or later, are required to complete the SARI requirements prior to graduation.

Graduate programs at Penn State submitted proposals for implementing the SARI program in a way that meets the particular needs of students in each unit. Each plan includes provisions for notifying students of the requirement, for meeting both the online and discussion-based parts of the training, and for monitoring student participation. SARI program plans were reviewed and approved by the Office for Research Protections, which maintains annual records of student participation and provides oversight for the program. Additional information, including copies of SARI training plans and student participation reports, are available from the Office for Research Protections upon request.