NIH Guidance to the Grantee Community regarding the Federal Government Shutdown

Dear Colleagues:

NIH posted the following notice to provide the grantee community with guidance regarding NIH operations during the federal government shut down. We urge you to review this guidance carefully and to share it with your NIH funded faculty members and researchers.

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-13-126.html

The key points from the guide notice are as follows:

1) During the shutdown, NIH extramural employees are prohibited from working (remotely or in the office). Consequently, there will be no access to voice mail, e-mail, fax, or postal mail during this period. Mail requiring someone to sign/accept may not be received. All communications will not be acted upon until after operations resume. It is recommended that we delay sending communications to NIH until after operations resume.

2) During the shutdown, all help desks, central e-mail boxes, and web ticketing systems for questions related to NIH grants policy and electronic grants systems will not be available, including the eRA Commons helpdesk.

3) During the shutdown, we are strongly encouraged not to submit paper or electronic grant applications to NIH. Adjustments to application submission dates that occur during the funding lapse will be announced once operations resume.

4) During the shutdown, all work and activities performed under currently active NIH grant awards may continue. However, no new Notices of Awards (NOA’s) will be received and progress reports should not be submitted as eRA Commons will be unavailable during the funding lapse and there will be no one at NIH to accept paper progress report submissions.

5) No cost extensions notifications and requests that require NIH prior approval will not be submitted during the funding lapse.

The Sponsored Projects website: http://www.research.uci.edu/ora/sp/ will be kept up-to-date as information regarding the shutdown is received from federal sponsors.

Please direct questions regarding the shutdown’s impact on your current awards to the team of Contract and Grant Officers assigned to your unit (http://apps.research.uci.edu/orastaff/staff.cfm?view_department=spda, Tam Tran, Assistant Director, Sponsored Projects, or Nancy Lewis, Director, Sponsored Projects.

Nancy Lewis

Director, Sponsored Projects