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NEWS - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
NSF Grants.gov implementation schedule
The revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), NSF 09-1, was issued on October 1, 2008 and is effective for proposals submitted on or after January 5, 2009. Please be advised that the guidelines contained in NSF 09-1 apply to proposals submitted in response to this funding opportunity. Proposers who opt to submit prior to January 5th, 2009, must also follow the guidelines contained in NSF 09-1.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) revised its Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) including the implementation of mentoring provisions described by the America COMPETES Act. Each proposal that requests funding to support postdoctoral researchers must include, as a separate section within the 15-page project description, a description of the mentoring activities that will be provided for such individuals. Proposals that do not include a separate section on mentoring activities within the Project Description will be returned without review (see the PAPP Guide Part I: Grant Proposal Guide Chapter II.C.2.d for further information). It is important that all proposals conform to the instructions provided in the GPG. Conformance is required and will be strictly enforced unless an authorization to deviate from standard proposal preparation requirements has been approved. NSF may return without review proposals that are not consistent with these instructions.
The most significant change is that NSF has revised its long standing salary policy of not funding academic year salary. NSF’s revised compensation policy provides “no more than two months of [senior project personnel] regular salary in any one year. This limit includes salary compensation received from all NSF-funded grants." The prior funding limitation to 2 months summer salary has been eliminated. If more than two months of support should be needed, NSF requires that “any compensation … in excess of two months must be disclosed in the proposal budget, justified in the budget justification, and must be specifically approved by NSF in the award notice.” This change comes largely from the fact that the NSF OIG effort audits found that it was an unacceptable practice to charge 100% salary in the summer months, when the effort was spread across both the summer and academic year.
Effective January 5, 2009, new NSF grants and funding amendments to existing NSF grants will begin referencing and are subject to the Grant General Conditions (GC-1) dated 01/09.
Travel, Article 10, has been updated to incorporate revised circumstances under which use of a foreign-flag air carrier is permissible. The article now addresses Airline "Open Skies" Agreements between the United States and a foreign government, which the Department of Transportation has determined meets the requirements of the Fly America Act. The Article provides information on the “Open Skies” Agreement with the European Union, and includes a link to the General Services Administration website for additional information on other Open Skies Agreement.
Coming November 18 - Enhancements to the Project Reports System
NSF is enhancing FastLane to improve tracking and management of project report submissions to better conform to the federal reporting requirements as outlined in OMB Circular A-110. These enhancements enable NSF to track project reporting requirements and submissions by award and to assist grantees in submitting the reports expeditiously. The Project Reports System link under Award and Reporting in the Proposals, Awards and Status link has been modified to show the reporting requirements for each award. As part of the enhancements, Principal Investigators and Co-Principal Investigators will be notified via email of reports that become due or overdue. Sponsored Project Offices will receive a copy of the email notice as well via the awardee email address that is maintained in Accounts Management/Organization Information.
When the enhancements are implemented, all active awards that are either standard grant, continuing grant, cooperative agreement or individual fellowships will be pre-loaded with outstanding project reporting requirements. The Project Reports link under the Research Administration application is improved to search on the pre-loaded data, which reflects the precise dates when reports are due or overdue.
You can view these enhancements by going to Fastlane Demonstration, Project Reports System under Award and Reporting Functions in Proposals, Awards and Status. The Demonstration site can be found at https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/jsp/homepage/demo_site.html