Policies

The CSD Facility policies are fully aligned with NSF and University of Minnesota policies, and have been formulated through discussions with NSF, Facility Governance Committees, University of Minnesota administration, and the research community.

Project-Specific Funding

NSF funding for the CSD Facility supports basic Facility operations. Project-specific costs (consumables, travel, freight, rentals, services, and others) must be supported by each project through one of the mechanisms described below. Please contact the Facility Director to determine the best option given the project scope. 

  • Invoice for Services. Best for projects with CSD Facility budgets under ~$10,000 to $15,000. Facility costs are included in the PI proposal budget. The University of Minnesota invoices the PI periodically as services are provided.
  • Supplement. This is the NSF preferred option for projects with Facility costs exceeding the invoice threshold noted above, and generally yields the lowest total cost for the project. The PI submits their proposal budget to NSF excluding the Facility costs, but explicitly states in the Project Summary and Budget Justification that, in addition to the budget requested in the PI proposal, a specified amount of money is requested for Facility services, and, if funded, the Facility will request a supplement for the expenses. The NSF program supporting the PI must allocate funds to a supplement budget to provide the Facility services. The funds to provide the Facility services come from the same program supporting the PI, to be delivered as a supplement to the CSD Facility grant when the PI is awarded their grant. The total project budget including anticipated Facility costs must be below any budget limit specified in the solicitation.
  • Collaborative Proposal. This option may be recommended if the Facility-related scope extends significantly beyond typical Facility services. The Facility Director submits a collaborative proposal linked to the lead institution at the time of proposal submission, with the budget consisting of project-specific Facility costs.
  • Subaward. This option is only recommended if the Facility-related scope extends significantly beyond typical Facility services, and the solicitation does not allow collaborative proposals. The Facility Director submits a subaward proposal to the lead institution prior to proposal submission, with the budget consisting of project-specific Facility costs.

Documentation

NSF requires that the Facility Director provides a Facility Support Letter to each PI planning to use Facility services during their project. The letter describes the scope of work, anticipated costs and timeframes, and the funding structure to be used. The PI must upload this letter as a supplementary document with their proposal. The Facility Support Letter is not a Letter of Collaboration. 

Citation

Anyone receiving support from the CSD Facility should acknowledge the facility in their publications and presentations. Including the facility in your acknowledgements helps to spread the word about our services, and is crucial to the continued funding of the program.

Accessioning Cores

The CSD Facility accepts cores of all types for permanent storage and curation. The cores may be recently-collected or decades old. Researchers wishing to accession cores should contact Kristina Brady Shannon to discuss the details and costs. 

Sample Distribution

Sample requests may originate from any scientist, curator, or educator with adequate resources to complete a scientific investigation, or who will prepare materials for curatorial or educational purposes.

Access

The NSF-defined exclusive use period (during which only the original PIs have access to the cores or data) is a maximum of two years from the date of generation of the sample or data. This usually involves multiple access moratorium timeframes for the samples and data generated during a single project. For example, if cores are collected in February, imaged in June, and discrete sample analyses are completed in December, the access moratorium for the cores expires 2 years later in February, for the images in June, and for the sample analytical data in December. 

After the conclusion of the access moratorium, sample requests may be submitted (subject to review and approval), and data are publicly available.

This access policy applies to all samples stored in the facility repository, and to all data generated at the facility, regardless of the original funding source(s) that supported core collection and data generation. 

Forms

All CSD Facility forms can be found here.