Title : FDP-NSF Specific Requirements Type : Grant Conditions NSF Org: OD / LPA Date : April 15, 1996 File : fdp96 As of 4/1/96 NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF) Arlington, VA 22230 Federal Demonstration Project 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 April 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 35810). 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 (4/96) 1