United States Environmental Protection M * Agency Questions and Answers Informational Webinar Chemical Mechanisms to Address New Challenges in Air Quality Modeling May 16, 2019 1. Question: Is there a limit to the number of applications an individual can participate? Answer: There is no limit on the number of applications an individual can participate. One can be principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on multiple applications. However, each application must be distinct from each other in terms of proposed research. 2. Question: Does this request for application (RFA) allow funding to foreign institutions? Answer: Foreign institutions are not eligible to apply but foreign institutions are allowed to be subawardees under an application submitted by a U.S.-based institution. 3. Question: Do you have any prior funding similar to this solicitation? Where can I find older solicitations? Answer: Previous funding opportunities can be found at this link: https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipients.archive 4. Question: Are there any caps on the maximum amount of funding going to subcontractors? Answer: No, as long as the total does not exceed the maximum funding limit. Note that applicants may not use subagreements to transfer or delegate their responsibility for successful completion of their EPA assistance agreement. Please refer to https://www2.epa.gOv/grants/epa-solicitation-clauses#Contracts and Subawards if your organization intends to identify specific contractors, including consultants, and subawardees in your application. 5. Question: Does a non-tenured associate professor qualify as a PI for early career? Answer: Yes, provided the associate professor meets all of the early career requirements described in Section III.A of the RFA. 6. Question: Are we allowed to have up to 3 Pis from different institutions? Answer: Yes. There should be one lead PI for an early career application. A multi-PI application will have a Contact PI. Investigators from other institutions other than the lead/contact Pi's institution can be subawardees. See Section I.F. of the RFA, EXCERPT: Groups of two or more eligible applicants may choose to form a consortium and submit a single application for this assistance agreement. The application must identify which organization will be the recipient of the assistance agreement and which organizations(s) will be subawardees of the recipient. Multiple Investigator applications may be submitted as: (1) a single Lead Principal Investigator (PI) application with Co-PI(s) or (2) a Multiple PI application (with a single Contact PI). If you choose to submit a Multiple PI application, you must follow the ------- United States Environmental Protection M * Agency specific instructions provided in Sections IV. and V. of this RFA. For further information, please see the EPA Implementation Plan for Policy on Multiple Principal Investigators (https://rbm.nih.gov/toolkit.htm). Please note: Early career awards will not accommodate a Multiple PI application. Early career awards shall be submitted as a single Lead PI application. 7. Question: For the global and regional models, is there a restriction to use only models developed in the U.S.? Answer: No. 8. Question: For reduced mechanisms for use in atmospheric chemistry, is there a common platform? Answer; No. 9. Question: Can early career applications include senior researchers as Co-PIs? Answer: The RFA does not give any numerical criteria as to how much work should be given to early career vs. senior researchers. However, the expectation is that a senior researcher who would like to perform a significant amount of research (e.g., as a PI or co-PI) under this RFA should apply under the regular grant funding opportunity (EPA-G2019-STAR-C1). We do not exclude senior researchers from an early career application, but significant resources should not be proposed for senior researchers. 10. Question: How do I know if my institution qualifies as a non-profit? Answer: Definition of non-profit organization is provided in the second paragraph of Section III.A on page 22. Please follow-up with the eligibility contact, Ron Josephson (Josephson.ronffiepa.gov; 202-564-7823) if additional clarification is needed. 11. Question: Is focus of the first research areas on development of mechanisms and is the focus of the third research area on using new mechanisms in Eulerian models? Answer: Yes 12. Question: Page 13 mentions box and Lagrangian models for research areas 1 and 2. Can Eulerian models be used? Answer: As stated in the RFA, "Proposed research should apply the newly developed chemical mechanisms in box and/or Lagrangian models to gain insights on chemistry and document performance of the mechanisms against experimental data." 13. Question: Are we allowed to have multi-PI, multi-institution collaborative grants for the regular wards? Answer: Yes. See response to question #6. For applications involving multiple institutions, the recipient institution will receive the award and the other institutions would be subawardees. 14. Question: Are co-investigators on the early career award expected to be early career as well (i.e. non-tenured)? ------- A l***i*%J^ United States Environmental Protection lx»l M m Agency Answer: Co-PIs on the early career applications who conduct significant amounts of research should meet the criteria for early career (though verification is only required for the lead PI). As explained above, significant resources should not be proposed for senior researchers. 15. Question: In addition to non-profit, are "non-for profits" eligible to apply? Answer: See response to question #10. Please follow-up with the eligibility contact, Ron Josephson (Josephson.ron@epa.gov; 202-564-7823) if additional clarification is needed. ------- |