PI Resources

General requirements

To apply for a CSCRS research grant, Principal Investigators (PIs) must be a member of our consortium that includes the University of California, Berkeley; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Duke University; Florida Atlantic University; and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

If you are funded, CSCRS requires PIs to comply with all grant requirements as this ensures the integrity of the project throughout the grant cycle and allows CSCRS to meet USDOT Federal reporting requirements. Successful adherence to grant obligations and performance on budget, schedule and project requirements of previous CSCRS projects will be considered as part of the review criterion for future proposals submitted by PIs.

 

Proposal process

Information on CSCRS Year 5 research proposals is now available. A letter of intent and a proposal form from CSCRS Year 3 are also available for reference:

• Call for proposal announcement
• Project information form
• Year 5 scoring information
• Letter of intent form
• Full proposal form

 

Project requirements

• Work plan template
• Data management plan
• Budget template
• USDOT general provisions and grant deliverables and requirements
• No-cost extensions: Contact Nancy Lefler (lefler@hsrc.unc.edu) to request a no-cost extension of your project in writing before the originally scheduled end date. Please note that a request for an extension must be submitted with a revised project schedule in order to be approved.
  Because of the impact on scheduling and reporting requirement tracking, please be thoughtful about requesting extensions. It is always ideal to stick to the originally submitted project schedule. But if an extension is necessary, it is preferable to only change a project end date once.
• Monthly meeting info: CSCRS holds monthly all-team meetings on the second Wednesday of every month, 2 to 3 p.m. Eastern. Meeting topics center on CSCRS research and tech transfer activities, as well as other important CSCRS updates. All CSCRS research principal investigators will be expected to present on their projects during at least one CSCRS monthly meeting.

 

Reporting requirements

• Semi-Annual Progress Report (SAPR) sample template (view previously submitted reports)
• Performance Indicators template
• Federal Financial Report, or Standard Form (SF) 425: Each consortium campus submits using own format
• Recipient Share report template

 

Publishing

• Archiving in National Transportation Library Rosa P 
• Information on author rights
• U.S. DOT Public Access and Data Management Review
• Accessibility for Document Creators and Providers
• National Transportation Library Public Access Plan FAQs
• USDOT rules regarding embargoes, rights: Ensure that all rights under copyright are non-exclusively retained by USDOT and that the terms and conditions of publication to peer-reviewed journals and other outlets do not impair the obligation of the authors to comply with the plan.

 

Final deliverables

• Final reports must go through the peer review process. Any comments resulting from that process will be send to the project PI to incorporate into the final report.
• Final report template
• Technical report documentation page
• Quality control guidelines
• 508 compliance: For inclusion in ROSA P, all public facing PDFs must be accessible. 
  • Submitters should run the Adobe Accessibility check and make the PDF as accessible as possible.
    • NTL’s Accessibility Guide 
    • Recording of webinar on 508 compliance
  • Two free compliance checkers
    • https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
    • https://www.levelaccess.com/color-contrast-checker/
• Slide deck template
• Final data set submission form

 

Project closeout

• Project closeout guidance
• CSCRS Dataverse
• Archiving (resources to come)

 

Research dissemination

• Debrief meeting questions
• Tech transfer plan

 

Other resources

• Archived resources and meeting materials

 

CSCRS Contacts

• Laura Sandt, Director (strategic guidance of all CSCRS projects, activities)
• Caroline Mozingo, Education and Outreach Programs Manager (communications, project management)
• Nancy Lefler, Business Manager (grant reporting requirements, project tracking)
• Wes Kumfer, Research Coordinator (feedback on research proposals, design)
• Jennifer Palcher-Silliman, Communications Manager (communications, meeting coordination, activity tracking/reporting, project closeout, final report coordination/promotion, general inquiries)
• Chris Gomola, Embedded Research Librarian (data management plans, citation assistance)
• General CSCRS email: info@roadsafety.unc.edu