ASSIST for the Submission of NIH Administrative Supplements

Beginning Saturday, July 25, 2020, the use of ASSIST for the submission of administrative supplements will be expanded. Paper submissions and the previous “streamlined” process within eRA Commons that permitted administrative supplement requests to be submitted directly to the awarding agency without having to go through Grants.gov, will no longer be accepted.

As of this date, there will be three methods for initiating an administrative supplement through eRA systems:

• Initiate in ASSIST, enter the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for an administrative supplement and enter information manually;
• Initiate in ASSIST and after entering the Federal ID number of the parent grant award, some of the information from the parent award is prepopulated;
• Initiate through eRA Commons and after identifying a specific grant for administrative supplement, be directed by the system to ASSIST where some information from the parent award is prepopulated.

For more information, see NIH eRA Information: Use of ASSIST Expanded for Submission of Administrative Supplements.

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July 1, 2020 Research Advocate: Update to NIH Administrative Supplement Policies

NIH Requirements: Disclosure of Other Support, Foreign Relationships and Activities, and Conflicts of Interest

Full transparency in National Institutes of Health applications and throughout the life of an NIH grant is critical. NIH requires the disclosure of all sources of research support, foreign components, and financial conflicts of interest.

A chart with examples of what to disclose to NIH about Senior/Key Personnel on Applications and Awards can be found on the NIH Protecting U.S. Biomedical Intellectual Innovation page.

NIH Guidance on Applications for Fall 2020 Due Dates During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The National Institutes of Health has issued Guidance for Applicants Preparing Applications for the Fall 2020 Due Dates During the COVID-19 Pandemic (NOT-OD-20-122), with particular focus on not including contingency plans related to COVID-19 in proposals:

“NIH grant applications should NOT include contingency plans that would outline steps needed to recover from temporary, emergency situations, or institutional return-to-the-workplace plans, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The guidance goes into effect beginning with applications submitted for the September 25, 2020 due date.

NSF Post-Award Disclosure of Current Support and In-Kind Contribution Information

Federal funding agencies have become increasingly concerned about the accurate reporting of current and pending support in proposals. The National Science Foundation has updated the Grant General Conditions (GC-1) dated October 5, 2020 to provide guidance on how a priincipal investigator or co-PI of an active NSF grant can disclose current support or in-kind contribution information that was not submitted at the proposal stage.

Effective October 5, 2020, the missing information must be submitted by the Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) within 30 calendar days of the identification of the undisclosed current support or in-kind contribution through use of the “Other Request” category in the Notification and Request Module in Research.gov.

See: Section 47 of the NSF Grant General Conditions for more information on these requirements.

Revision of NSF Award Terms and Conditions

A message from Jean Feldman, Head of the National Science Foundation Policy Office:

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Dear Colleagues:

I wanted to make you aware that the following sets of NSF Award Terms and Conditions have been revised:

NSF Agency Specific Requirements to the Research Terms and Conditions (ASR);

• Cooperative Agreement Financial & Administrative Terms and Conditions (CA-FATC);
• Cooperative Agreement Modifications and Supplemental Financial and Administrative Terms and Conditions for Major Multi-User Research Facility Projects and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers;
• Grant General Conditions (GC-1);
• Special Terms and Conditions (FL 26) for Administration of NSF Conference or Travel Grants;
• Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I Grant General Conditions (SBIR/STTR-I); and
• SBIR/STTR Phase II Cooperative Agreement Financial & Administrative Terms and Conditions (SBIR/STTR-II CA-FATC).

All of the terms and conditions have been updated to include a new article which establishes a post-award disclosure requirement for undisclosed current support and in-kind contribution information. Each set of terms and conditions is accompanied by a summary of changes made to that document.

The revised terms and conditions will apply to all new NSF awards and funding amendments to existing NSF awards made on or after October 5, 2020, except for the SBIR/STTR-I and SBIR/STTR-II CA-FATC which will become effective July 6, 2020.

Questions regarding NSF terms and conditions may be sent to the DIAS Policy Office at: policy@nsf.gov.

Regards,

Jean

Jean Feldman
Head, Policy Office
Division of Institution & Award Support (DIAS)
Office of Budget, Finance and Award Management
National Science Foundation

Update to NIH Administrative Supplement Policies

The National Institutes of Health has issued Notice of Requirement for Electronic Submission of all Administrative Supplements (NOT-OD-20-2-128).

Effective immediately:

• NIH will begin accepting administrative supplement applications for multi-project awards electronically. Since the administrative supplement applies to the parent award as a whole, the single-project application form package used for research grants and cooperative agreements will be used for these submissions (e.g., Competition ID= “FORMS-F-ADMINSUPP-RESEARCH.”)

Effective July 25, 2020:

• The streamlined submission method through the eRA Commons will be discontinued and replaced with the option to initiate the administrative supplement application within eRA Commons and leverage technology available in NIH ASSIST to complete submission.
  
  
• ALL supplement applications to existing single and multi-project awards must be submitted electronically through Grants.gov using NIH ASSIST, Grants.gov Workspace, or institutional system-to-system (S2S) solutions.