NIH Proposal & Award Guidelines

NIH Applications Must Be Complete and Compliant With NIH Policy and Application Instructions at Time of Submission.

NIH may withdraw any application identified during the receipt, referral, and review process that is incomplete or noncompliant with instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, the Funding Opportunity Announcement, and relevant NIH Guide Notices. 

• NIH applications must be complete, and compliant with all submission requirements and NIH policies, at the time of submission. 

• NIH strongly discourages the practice of using placeholder attachments for required elements in an application.  While it may allow an application to successfully pass eRA system-enforced validations, applications that include such attachments are incomplete and will be withdrawn.

• Applicants are expected to examine their applications for problems, errors, omissions, and oversights and must make any necessary or desired changes before the application submission deadline.

  • The application submission deadline is 5 PM local (applicant organization) time on the application due date. 

  • Applicants are encouraged to submit two or more days early to allow time for application viewing and corrections before the application submission deadline.

  • Corrective applications submitted after the application submission deadline are late and will overwrite any previous on-time submission for that application and permanently remove the on-time submission from consideration.

  • Applications submitted after the application submission deadline will be considered late, and only accepted under the limited circumstances described in the NIH/AHRQ/NIOSH Late Policy

• Post-submission materials to complete an application or to correct problems, errors, oversights, and omissions discovered after submission of the application will not be accepted per the NIH/AHRQ/NIOSH Post-Submission Materials Policy

When a recipient is in doubt about this longstanding grants policy, contact Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration or the Division of Receipt and Referral as listed below.

If an application is withdrawn because it is incomplete or does not comply with the application preparation and submission instructions, a letter will be placed in the eRA Commons Status page for that application.  The PD/PI and the AOR from the applicant organization will be notified by eRA Commons via e-mail to access their account and view the explanatory letter.

NSF Policy Changes

• The Policy Office in the Division of Institution & Award Support at the National Science Foundation produces a quarterly newsletter of implementation of new changes NSF Proposal & Award Policy Newsletter.
• NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), (NSF 17-1) has been issued.

Effective January 30, 2017, the National Science Foundation (NSF) implemented the following changes in FastLane to support the policy updates in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 17-1) and to run new and enhanced automated compliance checks on proposals:

Proposal Submission

• Two new types of proposals will be incorporated into the PAPPG with new required supporting documents and automated proposal compliance checks.

  • Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI): GOALI is a type of proposal that seeks to stimulate collaboration between academic research institutions and industry. The new GOALI automated compliance checks will require that at least one Co-Principal Investigator (PI) exists on the proposal and the “GOALI-Industrial PI Confirmation Letter” is uploaded at the time of proposal submission. All automated compliance checks applicable to Research proposals will apply to GOALI proposals. GOALI proposals were previously submitted via a program solicitation.

  • Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE): The RAISE proposal type supports bold, interdisciplinary projects. The new RAISE automated compliance checks will require that a “RAISE-Program Officer Concurrence Email” is uploaded at the time of proposal submission, the proposal award budget is less than or equal to $1 million, and the proposal duration is less than or equal to 5 years. All automated compliance checks applicable to Research proposals will apply to RAISE proposals.

• The Facilitation Awards for Scientists and Engineers with Disabilities (FASED) type of proposal will be included on the FastLane dropdown menu. All automated compliance checks applicable to Research proposals will apply to FASED proposals.

Deadline Submission

• Organizations that are unable to submit a proposal prior to a deadline due to a natural or anthropogenic disaster will be required to submit a new Single Copy Document, “Nature of Natural or Anthropogenic Event,” when attempting to submit a late proposal using the “Special Exception to the Deadline Date Policy” box on the NSF Cover Sheet.

Updated References and Terminology

• The PAPPG (NSF 17-1) has been modified in its entirety, to remove all references to the Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) and Award & Administration Guide (AAG). The document will now be referred to solely as the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide and is sequentially numbered from Chapter I-XII. All system references and links to the GPG and AAG will be updated to corresponding references and links in the PAPPG (NSF 17-1).

• “International Travel” type of proposals will be renamed to “Travel” and will be expanded to include domestic and international travel.

• “Facility/Center” type of proposals will be renamed to “Center/Research Infrastructure.”

Enhanced Automated Compliance Checks

• In addition to the new compliance checks for the GOALI, RAISE, and FASED types of proposals, FastLane will run enhanced automated compliance checks across several proposal types and will generate errors or warnings when the submission or deadline validation compliance checks are not met.

• Checks are run during “Check Proposal,” “Forward to SPO,” and “Submit Proposal.” The complete list of FastLane automated compliance checks effective January 30, 2017, is available here.

Note About Proposal File Update (PFU):

The automated compliance checks also apply when a PFU is performed on a proposal. The compliance checks will be run on all sections of the proposal, regardless of which section was updated during the PFU. Proposers should be aware that if a proposal was previously submitted successfully, a PFU performed on the proposal will be prevented from submission if the proposal does not comply with the compliance checks in effect at the time.

Note About Grants.gov:

Grants.gov-submitted proposals are not compliance-checked by the FastLane system and therefore do not undergo the same set of automated compliance checks at submission as those submitted directly via FastLane. If NSF receives a proposal via Grants.gov that is not compliant, it will be returned without review.