For Researchers | National Institute for Transportation and Communities

Are you a current NITC-funded researcher? See key requirements and resources to manage your current grant.

PSU PacTrans Projects

The Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans) is the Regional University Transportation Center (UTC) for Federal Region 10, housed at University of Washington (UW). In June of 2023, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), or Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), awarded PacTrans its fourth competitive grant of $15 million over 5 years. With that award, PSU joined PacTrans. The center is a mobility focused University Transportation Center with a theme of, “developing human-centered and transformative multimodal mobility solutions for an equitable Pacific Northwest.” PSU’s participation in PacTrans is managed by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC).

Each year, PacTrans provides PSU with $150,000 to fund “small research projects.” Those projects must be selected using a competitive, peer-review process. The Year 2 RFP describes the process for PSU researchers to submit proposals for these funds. PSU plans to award no more than three projects. Therefore, individual project requests should range from $30,000 to $70,000.

KEY DATES

Abstracts due: August 8, 2024, 11:59 pm.
Proposals due: August 29, 2024, 11:59 pm.

DOCUMENTS

To submit an abstract and proposal, log into PPMS.

Submitting a Progress Report

NITC Principal Investigators Handbook

Prinicipal Investigators (PIs) must comply with all grant requirements throughout the grant cycle. Successful adherence to grant obligations and past performance on budget, schedule, and fulfillment of project requirements will be used as a review criterion for future proposals that you submit. To that end, please read the NITC Principal Investigators' Handbook (PDF) prior to embarking on your project to better understand the requirements as well as the benefits you gain from NITC funding.

For questions about grant requirements, please contact the NITC Research Program staff at asktrec@pdx.edu.

Progress Reports are required of all PI's, and are are due on March 30th and September 30th every year, so long as the project is active. This information is critical for our performance measure reporting to our federal funder the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Show reportable progress throughout the life of a project by submitting that information through our PPMS research database for each of your projects.
A project is not complete until the final report has been approved and published by NITC, and a final progress report has been submitted via the PPMS.
Completed progress reports and current project status are considered before awarding subsequent grants to PIs. If your project is significantly delayed, you may be barred from competing in NITC grant competitions until current grant requirements are met.

We strongly encourage sharing the results of research projects at national conferences and in refereed journals. Researchers should provide copies of all papers submitted to conferences or journals to NITC, and include appropriate attribution to NITC. Seminars, symposia, distance learning classes and any education or technology transfer activities undertaken with NITC support requires collection of metrics on numbers of transportation professionals attending. Video or streaming web archives that can be posted on the NITC website are welcome. Please add activities and metrics to your progress report even if they occur AFTER you project is complete.

Submitting a No-Cost Extension

No-cost extensions (NCE) are due no later than 1 month prior to the end date of a project and are not to exceed 6 months from the date of the project award (see award letter date). Investigators must clearly justify the need for a NCE in the context of their research plan and the work completed so far. To submit a request:

Log into PPMS.
Update your progress report in PPMS.
Complete the NCE form in PPMS. See Instructions on Submitting a No-Cost Extension (PDF).
Notify the Research Program Administrator (asktrec@pdx.edu) that your NCE has been submitted.

Once the request is approved, PSU PIs will be notified by their DRA. PIs from partner institutions will receive an email from PSU's financial office once an amended task order is issued to the institution.

Submitting a Final Report

Researchers are required to submit a final report summarizing of research activities and findings, including educational and technology transfer activities. The final report serves as the technical documentation of the research and project undertaken.

The submitted report must follow the NITC Final Report Template and Style Guidelines* and cover page specifications.
It must be submitted to PPMS 30 days prior to the official end date of the project. See here on how to submit a final draft report to PPMS (PDF).
It will be peer-reviewed and copy-edited during a two-month review process.
Researchers are responsible for incorporating peer-review comments into the final report within 30 days after receiving the peer reviews.

*If submitting a report for a project funded by an Education Grant, please see the alternative Education Report Requirements.

Resources

PPMS

PPMS is the Project Proposal Management System of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) that is used by TREC and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) to manage proposal submissions, peer reviews, and active projects.