Additional Information

The HSSA reserves the right to amend or terminate this RFP after its release. Any clarifications or changes in guidelines or requirements will be reduced in writing and sent to those submitting responses to the RFP.

Applicants are responsible for consulting amendments to be sure they have the latest information.

Information in grant applications is received by HSSA with the understanding that it shall be used or disclosed solely for evaluation of applications or as required by law. HSSA holds all applications confidential in accordance with its confidentiality and subject to the public disclosure laws of the State of Washington. (For more information about Washington public disclosure law, applicants are referred to RCW 42.56 and to the amendments to the exemption provisions in RCW 42.56.270(14).)

Applicants responding to this RFP are hereby put on notice that their responses are public records and may be subject to public disclosures under the state’s Public Disclosure Act codified in chapter 42.56 RCW. Provided, however, the Public Disclosure Act contains various exemptions with regard to some information contained in the RFP. They include:

(18) Financial, commercial, operations and technical and research information and data submitted to or obtained by a health sciences and services authority in applications for, or delivery of, grants under RCW 35.104.010 through 35.104.060, to the extent that such information, if revealed, would reasonably be expected to result in private loss to providers of this information is exempt from disclosure.

Please MARK all information provided in your proposal which falls into the above provisions or any other applicable provisions in the Public Disclosure Act which you feel are applicable to your proposal in response to the HSSA RFP. You will be notified of any public disclosure request with regard to your proposal and be afforded an opportunity to provide further information specifying why the information is exempted from disclosure under the above provision or any other application exemption from disclosure.

Typically, when it receives LOIs and proposals, HSSA will release to the public the name of the sponsor, the applicant organization, the title of the project, the dates of the proposed grant period, the funding amount requested, and miscellaneous contact and demographic data. For unfunded applications, HSSA will not release the abstract or narrative of the proposed work, the budget, or any identifiers regarding co-applicant organizations, as disclosure of these items might be reasonably expected to result in private loss to the applicant organizations.

Once a proposal has been funded, HSSA will release to the public certain additional information from the application, including an abstract of the work and the names and contact information of any co-investigators or co-applicant organizations.

In response to a public disclosure request for a funded application under Washington State law, HSSA may provide further information from the application to the requestor, but only to the extent that provision of such information would reasonably not be expected to result in private loss to the providers of such information.

If HSSA receives a public records request for a funded or unfunded application, it will notify the applicant organization of such a request in a timely manner in order to allow the organization the opportunity to assert objections to disclosure in any applicable proceeding.

When performing HSSA-funded research or increasing infrastructure capacity for research, it is essential that the personal interests of investigators or the proposal proponents do not impede their judgment or compromise their objectivity. Even the perception of a conflict of interest has the potential to erode the public’s confidence in the research process. It is essential that applicant organizations have a financial conflict of interest policy in place and that all proposals submitted to HSSA have been vetted according to that policy. In accepting an award, the applicant organization will certify to HSSA in the grant agreement that potential financial conflicts of personnel participating in the funded research or infrastructure project have been disclosed and that all conflicts have been eliminated or mitigated. Applicant organizations that do not have a financial conflict of interest policy should consult with HSSA early in the application process to discuss how the financial conflict of interest review will be performed.

If a project will include research involving human subjects, the research site must operate under an appropriate Office of Human Research Protections-approved assurance for the protection of human subjects. Its procedures must also comply with all Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) human-subjects-related policies. In accepting an award from HSSA, an organization certifies that it has a system that complies with federal, state and local government regulations to protect the rights, well-being and personal privacy of human subjects in research and that any HSSA-funded research involving human subjects has been reviewed and approved by the applicants human subjects oversight bodies.

For research involving vertebrate animals, the applicant organization must ensure that all performance sites hold Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare-approved assurances. In accepting an award from HSSA, an organization certifies that it has a system that complies with federal, state and local government regulations to humanely, efficiently, effectively and legally use live vertebrate animals in research. Further, it certifies that and HSSA-funded research involving vertebrate animals has been reviewed and approved by the applicable animal use and care oversight bodies.

Any HSSA-funded research involving human subjects or vertebrate animals will need to have been reviewed and approved prior to execution of the grant agreement.

Project involving multiple collaborating organizations must be supported by an agreement that makes explicit provision for the disposition of IP rights among the organizations. Such an agreement must clearly allocate the rights that the organizations will have in any IP developed during HSSA-funded research and identify which of the organizations will be responsible for commercialization. The IP rights disposition agreement does not need to be submitted with the proposal but must be in place before the grant agreement is signed. One example of an appropriate agreement for this purpose can be found in the Federal Small Business Technology Transfer Research Program – "The Allocation of Rights in Intellectual Property and Rights in Intellectual Property and Rights to Carry out Follow-On Research, Development, or Commercialization":

HSSA grants are an investment by Spokane County and the State of Washington in the future of its citizens. Full and timely reporting of the progress and results of funded research by principal investigators has great importance for calculating the returns on that investment.

Reporting requirements, specific for each funded proposal, will be finalized in the grant agreement. HSSA requires the following reports: semi-annual progress reports, annual financial reports, final project and financial reports, and post-project annual reports for a period of five years. Site visits to and in-person briefings from principal investigators may be used by HSSA as tools to track the progress of funded projects.

HSSA reserves the right to publicly disseminate information about its granting activities. HSSA communications to the public may include lists of LOIs and proposals received, the names of principal investigators and applicant organizations, project titles, the field(s) in which the research will be conducted, descriptions of proposals funded, and reports about project progress and outcomes. Recipient organizations and principal investigators will be expected to provide the HSSA with reasonable assistance in communicating funded research and its impacts to the public.

Funds will not be authorized for expenditure by HSSA until the grant agreement between HSSA and the recipient organization is completed.

The HSSA Board expects to announce a second 2009 grant competition to increase access to health services in Spokane County in mid-July.