Month: May 2025

NIH has temporarily disabled the option to initiate a No-Cost Extension (NCE) request in eRA Commons (see NOT-OD-256-110), in order “to review all existing grants and cooperative agreements to ensure that NIH awards do not fund off-mission activities or projects.”  If your project is scheduled to end in the next 60 days and you anticipate the…

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a Policy Notice to apply a standard indirect cost rate not to exceed 15% MTDC to all grants and cooperative agreements awarded to IHEs. This policy applies to new awards made on or after May 5, 2025. Ongoing awards issued prior to this date, including supplements and continuing grant increments,…

Effective May 1, 2025, NIH has updated their policy on foreign subrecipients (NOT-OD-25-104). The policy states that “NIH will not issue awards to domestic or foreign entities (new, renewal or non-competing continuation), that include a subaward to a foreign entity. Additionally, NIH will no longer accept prior approval requests to add a new foreign component…

On April 30, 2025, the NIH Director announced a revised implementation date for the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy. Originally set to go into effect on December 31, 2025, the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy will now be effective as of July 1, 2025 (NOT-OD-25-101). The revised implementation date means that any Author Accepted Manuscript, resulting…

On April 11, the Department of Energy issued a “policy flash” indicating a change in policy related to indirect cost recovery for institutes of higher education (IHEs). DOE has stated that they “will no longer use the negotiated indirect cost rate for grants awarded to IHEs. Instead, it is setting a standardized 15 percent indirect…

Over the last few days we have received concerning news around dramatic cuts and funding rescission of existing grants and cuts to staff at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). These cuts are targeting a range of programs at universities as well as scholarly societies and humanities councils. Targeting the NEH, as well as…

On April 4, a federal district court judge issued a final judgment and permanent injunction blocking the Trump administration from cutting National Institutes of Health payments for research indirect costs. This action is related to litigation of three lawsuits, including the one detailed below. The government subsequently filed an appeal on April 8, 2025. This follows the…

On March 14, the Fourth Circuit granted a stay of the preliminary injunction described below, pending appeal. This stay means that the named agencies may continue with proceedings based on the EOs until further litigation is concluded. This follows the action on February 21, 2025, wherein a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction on…

On February 25, 2025, a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction enjoining the administration from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the blanket freeze on disbursement of Federal funds.

On Friday, February 7 the National Institutes of Health released an update to its guide notice 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement. The new guidance effectively lowers the Facilities and Administration (F&A) costs to 15 percent. It states that the guidance reflects “NIH’s updated policy deviating from the negotiated indirect cost rate for new grant awards…