Federal shutdown has impact on Rice

The partial shutdown of the federal government is preventing Rice faculty from submitting grant proposals to the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, NASA and the National Institutes of Health, said Vice Provost for Research Vicki Colvin at the Oct. 8 Administrators Forum.

“October is a great month for proposal submissions, so this has been a great source of stress for the faculty,” she said. Rice researchers also can’t email or talk to their grant program managers at federal offices, Colvin noted.

“Everyone who has federal research grants is getting paid, but if the shutdown continues for a long time, it will get harder to continue research activities,” she said.

Rice’s research awards of $130.3 million for fiscal year 2013 are up 11 percent over FY 12.

Colvin said more than half of Rice’s research funding comes from the federal government.

Rice researchers can go to the university’s Office of Sponsored Research website for updates on how they might be affected by the federal shutdown:
http://osr.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=400.