The federal government has exhibited flexibility in some aspects of its management of research funding to universities during COVID-19, including extending deadlines for submission of applications, rebudgeting award funds for COVID-19 response-related activities and paying salaries from federal award funds to grant personnel who were unable to carry out research work due to the pandemic. Some of that flexibility was discontinued as of June 18, although the salary flexibility has been extended - by some federal agencies - to September 30, 2020. We should expect that eventually all will be discontinued. We should act now to adjust to limited flexibilities, plan for a future without these flexibilities, and set ourselves up to meet all of the associated expectations.
We should not expect that federal agencies will provide additional funding simply to support meeting the original project goals. As a result, PIs should consider what progress on a project's goals will look like over the coming months. If significant changes in project goals are anticipated, then PIs are advised to discuss those changes with the cognizant Program Officer and request approval from the cognizant Grant Official, where prior approval is required.
The information below provides a summary of the flexibilities that are extended and those that have expired. For more details, the Post-award Fiscal Compliance group (PAFC) has information at this site:
https://finance.uw.edu/pafc/covid19-information-sponsored-awards
The ability of federal agencies to allow charging of salaries of personnel unable to carry out work on a federally-sponsored award has been extended to September 30, 2020; so far, only NIH and NSF have adopted this extension.
- At the UW, staff who are unable to complete work on the Award and cannot be diverted to other work use the SSH allocation for salaries. Other research personnel are not affected.
- If you have staff using the SSH allocation, please always confirm with the federal awarding agency that has funded your project to determine if they have adopted and extended the salary related flexibilities.
- The extension of the ability to pay personnel using the SSH allocation now has new requirements:
- Exhaust other available funding sources to sustain workforce
- Implement necessary steps to save overall operational costs (such as rent renegotiations, reallocation of funding for travel or supplies not needed, etc.)
- Retain documentation of efforts to exhaust other funding sources and reduce overall operational costs.
The following flexibilities are expiring:
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- Expiring 7/26/20: flexibility on extensions and reporting requirements for awards made directly for emergency support in response to COVID-19
- Expired 6/18/20:
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- Flexibility with application deadlines
- No cost extensions on expiring awards
- Abbreviated non-competitive continuation requests
- Allowability of costs not normally charged to grants
- Prior approval requirement waivers
If you have questions, please work with your unit administration to determine how these changes affect your federal award.
Mary Lidstrom
Vice Provost for Research