Recipients of PBBR grants and fellowships must remain in compliance with all rules and regulations regarding expenditure, overdrafts, and acknowledgments. 

Eligibility Requirements

The New Frontier Research (NFR) Award and the Technology, Methodologies, and Cores (TMC) Award are only open to applicants who meet the following requirements:

• UCSF faculty members with an Academic Senate Appointment. (No adjunct appointments are eligible.)
• UCSF faculty members working in Biomedical Sciences (BMS), the Herbert W. Boyer Program in Biological Sciences (PIBS) and/or Quantitative Biosciences Consortium (QBC) graduate programs. (If a proposal includes more than one investigator, only one investigator must meet this eligibility requirement.)
• Gladstone Institutes and Gallo Center faculty members are also eligible for these awards but must meet the above eligibility criteria and must manage their funds using a UCSF Chart of Account (COA).
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) faculty members are not eligible for NFR Awards, but are eligible for TMC Awards. They must meet the above eligibility criteria and manage their funds using a UCSF COA.

Award Setup

1. Upon notification of an award, email Linda Reilly to obtain the PBBR parent COA information.
2. The principal investigator’s (PI) departmental accounting manager or contact will then need to request a separate project ID and use the PI’s department ID to set up a unique COA for the project.
3. Once the PI’s project COA is set up, email the COA information to Linda Reilly. PBBR will then allocate funds to the PI’s project COA.

Expenditure Period

When awarded a PBBR grant or fellowship, funds for each period should be expended within the period as proposed. Unexpended funds must be returned to PBBR. Although we discourage credit balances at the end of the award period, awardees may request a No Cost Extension for three, six, or 12 months. Beyond 12 months, extensions are prohibited.

Allowable Expenditures for PBBR Grants

The award must be applied solely to the conduct of research as outlined in your project proposal. Funds may not be used for faculty or administrative salaries, student tuition or fees, travel, food, or entertainment. These costs are specifically excluded.

General office supplies and telephone charges must be 100 percent related to the research project; expenses that appear on the general ledger will be closely audited by the PBBR Financial Analyst.

Salaries for graduate students, postdocs, and professional technical staff are allowed.

All PIs will be asked to provide progress reports for each year of their awards so we can prepare annual updates for the Sandler Foundation.

We will also likely ask PIs to participate in a biennial site visit with the Sandler family and their external scientific advisory committee. 

Allowable Expenditures for PBBR Independent Postdoctoral Fellowships

Research allowances may be used for research supplies, meetings, courses, and other research expenses directly related to the proposed research and as outlined in the fellowship application. Please note the following:

• Total expenses for computer hardware cannot exceed $2,000.
• Total expenses for travel to scientific meetings cannot exceed $2,000.
• The remaining funds may be used for research supplies and courses related to the career development of the fellow.

Funds may not be used for food or entertainment, student tuition or fees, or payroll expenses of any kind (i.e., faculty, staff, student, or administrative). These costs are specifically excluded.

Overdrafts

Award overdrafts are the responsibility of the PI's department. For example, if the PI’s appointment is in the Department of Biochemistry, then the Department of Biochemistry is responsible for clearing any overdraft of the fund. Failure to clear up overdrafts can jeopardize future PBBR funding for the PI.

Acknowledgments

When publishing research supported by PBBR funds, please use the following acknowledgment:

“This project was funded by the UCSF Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research, funded in part by the Sandler Foundation.”

Please also email a PDF of each publication to [email protected].

No-Cost Extensions

Requests must be submitted before the end of the award period. Extensions beyond 12 months are not permitted.

Three months: A request to extend funding for three months requires no justification from the PI. Before the end of the award period, the PI or departmental accounting manager or contact may request an extension by emailing Linda Reilly. Please provide the award’s COA information in your request.

Six or 12 months: To request an award extension of six or 12 months, the PI should submit the request by emailing Linda Reilly. Please address the request to Joe DeRisi, PhD, and include the following information:

• Project title
• Award period
• Award amount
• Amount of unspent funds
• Award COA information
• Date through which the award is to be extended
• Plan to spend out the award within the new time frame

PIs requesting a 12-month extension must also include information regarding the specific reasons for the project delay. 

If a No-Cost Extension is not requested and there is a credit balance three months after the end date of an award, the credit balance will be returned to PBBR.