Post Award Administration

Post Award Changes and Approvals 

Principal Investigators who want to make changes which deviate from the proposal that was originally approved by the Sponsor should refer to the specific terms of the award.   In some cases, "internal" prior approval by Research Funding Services (RFS) is sufficient, yet others might require the prior approval of the Sponsor as well.  However, all requests must be on a  Institutional Prior Approval (IPA)  form.   

Most sponsors require that they be informed of any significant changes. For Public Health Service grants, the following are usually considered a significant change and require the prior approval of the sponsor:

  • significant rebudgeting action (more than 25%)
  • changes in the objectives or scope of the project
  • change of Principal Investigator
  • change in key personnel whose expertise is critical to the project
  • change in grantee institution
  • purchasing equipment not originally budgeted
  • change in the use of human subjects or animals
  • adding or increasing a subcontract not originally budgeted
  • incurrence of patient care costs when not originally budgeted
  • rebudgeting out of budgeted patient care costs
  • transferring substantive programmatic work by contract
  • rebudgeting from trainee costs

When the prior approval of the sponsor is required, the request should be made in writing to the sponsor and countersigned by RFS in advance of the change. Requests for retroactive approval should be avoided. 

No Cost Extensions

Changes requiring only internal approval  such as No-Cost Extensions should be requested via the Institutional Prior Approval (IPA) form with an explanation for the delay in research progress.  Please contact RFS, if you have specific questions.

Technical Reporting

Grants and contracts typically have requirements for programmatic performance reporting. Generally, progress reports are submitted on an annual basis. However, the timing and frequency of reports is dictated by the terms of the grant or contract. Principal Investigators are responsible for submission of all technical reports and should become familiar with the terms of their grant or contract.

Closeout

At the end of grants there is usually a reporting requirement as well.  NIH typically requires three items within 90 calendar days of the last day of the final budget period: 

1) a Financial Status Report - prepared and submitted by Grant Accounting after departmental confirmation;
2) a Final Progress Report (prepared by the PI) and
3) a Final Invention Statement  (Form HHS568 Rev. 11/07) - filled in by the PI and signed by RFS after patent information verification. 

The NIH strongly encourages submission of all items electronically via the Commons. Just click on the Requires Closeout link for your specific grant within the NIH Commons website:  
https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/index.jsp 

Detailed requirements are included as part of the Notice of Award (NoA) for the final year of the grant.