Important Updates Regarding Federal Government Shutdown

Effects on Proposals and Awards 

Proposals

The Sponsored Projects Office (SPO) will continue to submit proposals to federal sponsors to the extent proposal submission systems (NSF Fastlane, Grants.gov, NSPIRES, etc) are operable. At this time, we cannot foresee how a shutdown may affect our ability to submit proposals. We do know that in the event these systems continue to function, we will be without help desk or technical support should any submission issues arise.

Request for Approval to Spend (RAS)

Requests for approval to spend funds on awards not yet received (RAS requests) should be carefully considered due to the additional financial risk caused by the shutdown. Each RAS should be discussed with the appropriate Sponsored Projects Team prior to department/ORU or Dean endorsement of such requests. The Office of Research will closely review and monitor RAS requests and consult as needed with PIs, Chairs, Deans and department staff to determine if the risk is appropriate for the University to assume. 

Awards

To the best of our knowledge the following may occur:

- No awards will be issued by federal sponsoring during the shutdown. This includes new, supplemental and continuation (incremental funding) awards. 

- Federal awards under negotiation at the time of the shutdown and multi-year contracts that end during/after the shutdown may be put on hold by the sponsor. 

- Federal employees (e.g., Program Officers, Grants Management Specialists, and Contracting Officers) most likely will not be available to conduct routine business. 

Each agency has an agency-specific notice and plan for shutting down their operations. These should be reviewed on an award by award basis. We have linked these below under Sponsor Notices and Information. 

Additionally, the federal sponsor can issue a stop-work order. If a stop-work order is issued, SPO will receive a project-specific notice from the federal sponsor and will inform the department liaison. Projects funded by contracts and cooperative agreements are more likely to receive stop-work orders or performance suspension notices than projects funded by grants. 

Research Compliance

At this time, we do not anticipate that the shutdown will impact the review and approval of research protocols by UCSB's research oversight committees (e.g, IRB, IACUC, etc.). Please note that these services may be more than minimally impacted by a long-term shutdown.