NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF)
Arlington, VA 22230
Federal Demonstration Partnership
Agency Specific Requirements
Modifications to the General Terms and Conditions
Identification of the Cognizant Awarding Agency Officials
The NSF Grants Officer is the official to be notified under
circumstances noted in Articles 1d, 3d(1), 5, 11, 13, 14, 22a(4), 23, and 24.
The NSF Program Officer is the official to be notified under
circumstances noted in Articles 6, 8a, 9b, and 25d(3).
Article 1. Recipient Responsibilities and Federal Requirements
a. The grantee is responsible for notifying NSF about:
(1) any allegation of scientific misconduct that it concludes has
substance and requires an investigation in accordance with NSF
misconduct regulations published at 45 CFR 689 or
(2) any significant problems relating to the administrative or
financial aspects of the grant.
b. Add the following paragraph g. to Article 1:
g. The grantee should ensure that the Principal Investigator or
Project Director receives a copy of the award conditions, including: the award
letter, the budget, these general terms and conditions, any special terms and
conditions, and any subsequent changes in the award conditions. These award
conditions are made available to the grantee by NSF, either in paper or
electronic form, and may be duplicated, copied or otherwise reproduced by the
grantee as appropriate. This provision does not alter the grantee's full
responsibility for conduct of the project and compliance with all award terms
and conditions.
Article 2. Allowable Costs and Prior Approvals
a. Delete paragraph c. and substitute the following:
c. The only prior Federal approvals required to be obtained by
the recipient under this award shall be those specified in any of the
requirements listed in Article 1, above, including those specified in these
general terms and conditions. Prior NSF approval requirements apply to the
activities and expenditures specified below:
1. Written prior approval from the NSF Grants Officer:
(a) Significant Project Changes (See Article 5);
(b) Establishing relatedness of projects under the direction of
collaborating Principal Investigators (See Article 3);
(c) Alterations and Renovations $10,000 or over (see Article 16).
2. Written prior approval from the cognizant NSF Program Officer
is necessary to reallocate funds budgeted for participant or trainee support
costs (See Grant Policy Manual (GPM) Section 618).
All other Federal prior approval requirements, including those in OMB Circular
A-21 and A-110, are waived. The recipient may maintain such internal prior
approval systems as it considers necessary.
b. Institutions may be reimbursed at indirect cost rates no
higher than those approved by the cognizant audit agency.
Article 6. Non-Competitive or Continuation Award Requirements
a. In lieu of paragraph c., Content of Technical Progress Report,
recipients shall utilize the NSF Form 1328, "Annual Progress Report," to
submit the Technical Progress Report. The Annual Progress Report Form
Certification must be signed.
b. Timing of Progress Reports. Unless otherwise specified in the
grant, one copy of the NSF Form 1328 shall be submitted to the cognizant NSF
Program Officer at least three months prior to the end of the current budget
period.
Article 7. Financial Reports
In lieu of the SF 269, "Financial Status Report" and unless otherwise
specified in the grant letter, the grantee must furnish NSF its quarterly
expenditure information on the SF 272, "Federal Cash Transaction Report."
Article 8. Final Report Requirements
The NSF Form 98A (7/95) "Final Project Report" must be sent to the NSF
Program Officer. The SF 272 "Federal Cash Transaction Report" must be sent to
the Cash Management and External Accounting Branch, Division of Financial
Management, NSF.
Article 9. Dissemination of Project Results
NSF expects significant findings from education activities or research
it supports to be promptly submitted for publication with authorship that
accurately reflects the contribution of those involved.
NSF expects investigators to share with other researchers, at no more
than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the data, samples,
physical collections, and other supporting materials created or gathered in
the course of the work. It also encourages recipients to share software and
inventions or otherwise act to make the innovations they embody widely useful
and usable.
Adjustments and, where essential, exceptions may be allowed to
safeguard the rights of individuals and subjects, the validity of results, or
the integrity of collections or to accommodate legitimate interests of
investigators.
Article 15. Equipment and Real Property
Add a new paragraph g. as follows:
g. Grantees should follow the guidance contained in GPM 544
regarding use of NSF-supported research instrumentation and facilities.
Article 16. Alterations and Renovations
Alterations and renovations $10,000 or over (Construction) require
prior written NSF approval.
Article 22. Patents and Inventions
NSF's standard patent rights clause, published at 45 CFR 650.4(a)
shall be substituted for the referenced patent clause (37 CFR 401.14). The
Grantee shall also include this clause in all subawards for experimental,
developmental or research awards, regardless of the type of subawardee
organization. The NSF clause is identical to that prescribed in the
Department of Commerce (DOC) guidance at 37 CFR 401.14(a) except that:
a. pursuant to section 401.5(d) of the DOC guidance (37 CFR
401.5(d)) , NSF has added to paragraph (b) of the clause a stipulation that
the Foundation reserves the right to direct a grantee to transfer to a foreign
government or research performer such rights to any subject invention as are
required to comply with any international treaty or agreement identified when
the grant is made as being applicable to the assisted research;
b. as permitted by section 401.5(f) of the DOC guidance (37 CFR
401.5(f)), NSF has added two subparagraphs to the end of paragraph f. of the
clause to require grantees or their representatives to send to the Foundation
confirmations of Government licenses for and copies of any United States
patents on subject inventions; and
c. since NSF normally uses the same clause for all
subcontractors, the first two subparagraphs of paragraph g. of the clause
specified in the DOC guidance have been reduced to one.
Article 26. Nondiscrimination
The grantee agrees to comply with 45 CFR 611, the NSF implementing
regulations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 45 CFR 605, the
NSF implementing regulations of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Other Additional Requirements
No. 1 -- Technical Progress Report Submissions for NSF Standard Grants*
* Standard Grants are defined in GPM Section 210 as "a type of
grant under which NSF agrees to provide a specific level of support for a
specified period of time. There is no statement of NSF intent to provide
additional future support without submission of another proposal."
a. Content of Technical Progress Reports for NSF Standard Grants.
Recipients shall utilize the NSF Form 1328 for submission of the progress
report under NSF standard grants.
b. Timing of Progress Reports. For standard grants with an award
duration of 2 years or more, the first report shall be submitted no later than
90 days after the anniversary of the effective date of the grant, with
succeeding reports annually thereafter, except after the final year.
No. 2 -- Cost Sharing and Cost Sharing Records
a. General. The grantee must cost share under this grant in accordance
with any specific requirements contained in or referenced by the applicable
program announcement, solicitation or award letter. If the grant has no
specific requirements and if the work supported by this grant is for research
resulting from an unsolicited proposal, the grantee may meet the statutory
cost-sharing requirement by choosing either of two alternative methods:
1. by cost-sharing a minimum of one percent on this project; or
2. by cost-sharing a minimum of one percent on the aggregate
total costs of all NSF-supported projects requiring cost-sharing.
b. Specific Cost Sharing Requirements. If the grant has specific
cost-sharing requirements in excess of the one percent minimum indicated
above, cost-sharing participation in other projects may not be counted towards
meeting the specific cost-sharing requirements of the grant, unless otherwise
stated in the applicable program announcement/solicitation.
c. Cost-Sharing Records. The grantee must maintain records of all
project costs that are claimed by the grantee as cost-sharing as well as
records of costs to be paid by the Government. Such records are subject to
audit. Acceptable forms of cost-sharing contributions are those which meet
the criteria established at Section .23 of OMB Circular A-110. Unless
otherwise specified in the grant, approval is given to include unrecovered
indirect costs as part of cost-sharing or matching contributions. If the
grantee's cost participation includes in-kind contributions, the basis for
determining the valuation for volunteer services and donated property must be
documented.
d. Cost-Sharing Reports. Unless otherwise required by the grant
instrument or requested by NSF, the actual cost participation by the grantee,
while subject to documentation and audit, need not be reported to NSF.
However, in cases where the cost-sharing requirements of the award are
$500,000 or more, the amount of cost-sharing must be documented (on an annual
and final basis) and reported to NSF and certified by the authorized
organizational representative. These cost-sharing reports shall be included
as part of the annual progress and final project reports.
e. Exemptions from Statutory Cost-Sharing Requirement. If the grant does not
contain or reference any specific cost-sharing requirements and provides funds
solely for the following purposes (not considered to be in support of "research"),
statutory cost-sharing is not required:
1. international travel;
2. construction, improvement or operation of
facilities;
3. acquisition of research equipment;
4. ship operations;
5. education and training;
6. publication, distribution and translation of
scientific data and information;
7. symposia, conferences and workshops; and
8. special studies authorized or required by
Subsections 3a(5) through 3a(7) of the NSF Act,
as amended.
No. 3 -- Consultant Services
Payments to individuals for consultant services under this grant shall
not exceed the daily equivalent of the then current maximum rate paid for an
Executive Schedule, Level IV, Federal employee (exclusive of indirect cost,
travel, per diem, clerical services, fringe benefits, and supplies). A daily
rate of $443.00 became effective January 10, 1993, and, as of July 1, 1996,
this rate remains current.
No. 4 -- Investigator Financial Disclosure Policy
(Applicable only to awards resulting from new proposals submitted to
NSF on or after October 1, 1995.)
If the grantee employs more than 50 persons, the grantee shall maintain an
appropriate written and enforced policy on conflict of interest consistent
with the provisions of GPM Section 510 (which also is published at 60 Federal
Register 35820).
No. 5 -- Sense of Congress on the Use of Funds
Recent Acts making appropriations to NSF provide "It is the sense of
the Congress that, to the greatest extent practicable, all equipment and
products purchased with funds made available in this Act should be
American-made and require the Foundation to notify grantees of that
statement."
NSF ASR (7/96)