Oakland University
Tuesday, January 27, 2015

NSF Updates - Important

Colleagues,

On January 26, 2015, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will release updates to FastLane and Research.gov that may impact the way you work. This update will implement revised policy and incorporate feedback received from NSF staff and the research community.

Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 15-1)

A revised version of the PAPPG was issued on November 20, 2014, which incorporates OMB’s Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (Uniform Guidance), as well as other policy updates. On January 26, 2015, the following changes will be made to FastLane to support the revised PAPPG:

Budget Form Update: The budget form will be updated so that the “Residual Funds” line (Line K) will not be editable for all programs except Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR). As this field is currently used for the purpose of collecting fees, “Residual Funds” will be renamed to “Small Business Fee.”

Automated Compliance Checks

Beginning January 26, 2015, FastLane will  run an additional 24 automated checks on proposals to ensure they comply with requirements outlined in the PAPPG, Chapter II.C.2 of the Grants Proposal Guide (GPG). Detailed below, these checks will validate a proposal for compliance with page count, proposal sections per type of funding mechanism and budget-related rules for proposals submitted in response to the GPG, Program Announcements, and Program Descriptions. At this time, these checks will not be enforced for proposals submitted in response to Program Solicitations.

The checks detailed above will be triggered when the “Check Proposal,” “Forward to SPO,” or “Submit Proposal” functions are selected by a proposer or proposing organization. Depending on the rule being checked, a warning or error message will display when a proposal is found to be non-compliant. If an error message appears, the organization will not be able to submit the proposal until it is compliant. To view a detailed list of all compliance checks, click here.

Research.gov User Experience Enhancements

On January 26, 2015, NSF will complete another round of enhancements to Research.gov based on feedback received from the community and recommendations from usability experts. These changes will begin to prepare the research community for the Research.gov/FastLane integration while improving the awardee experience. The following enhancements will be implemented:

We encourage you to share this information with your colleagues.  If you have any questions, please contact the NSF Help Desk at 1-800-673-6188, or ithelpcentral@nsf.gov

Thank you,

The NSF Business Applications Team



Created by Barbara Kooiman (kooiman2@oakland.edu) on Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Modified by Barbara Kooiman (kooiman2@oakland.edu) on Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Article Start Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2015