Government Shutdown Impacts Students

Project Info

As you have read and seen, our federal government is currently shut down. This immediately impacts higher education across the country for students and our universities.

Meredith T. Niles, NAGPS Director of Legislative Affairs, has prepared summaries of the most relevant ramifications affecting us:

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Proposal submissions to federal agencies. Grants.gov will continue to be functional during a shutdown for receipt of grant proposals. However, grants.gov will not be delivering the proposals to the sponsoring agencies. Therefore, you will not know until the shutdown concludes whether your proposal made it through all of the error checking for that particular agency’s rules. For National Science Foundation (NSF) proposals, Fastlane will not be available during the shutdown. NSF will provide updated information about any deadlines occurring during a shutdown after business at the agency resumes. Consult government websites frequently for additional information.
Grant and Fellowship Funding. Agencies will allow work being performed under already funded awards to continue unless an agency has provide a stop work notice for a particular award (inquire with your advisors or campus officials if you are unsure of your status). No new awards, award increments, supplements or modifications will be processed during the shutdown. Health and Human Services (HHS) indicates they will allow schools to continue to draw down funds on existing awards, but NSF’s payment mechanisms will not be available. With regards to federal fellowships, it is likely that if you receive your paycheck from your actual school rather than an agency itself you will continue to be paid, but we advise you to check with your own institutions.
Research Collaborations/subcontracts. If you have a subcontract or collaborations you should check with your schools sponsored programs office to understand whether federally funded programs that expire during the shut down can issue new subawards.
Availability of federal staff. Federal staff will be furloughed for the duration of the shut down and will not be available for questions or discussions or speaking engagements. You should also expect that when they actually do return that there will be a significant backlog and wait periods for responses will be long.
Grant and Contract Reporting. NSF and HHS systems for reporting will not be functional during a shutdown. Federal staff will also not be available to assist with requests for modifications and/or guidance relative to your awards. Please be prepared to submit required reports as soon as the government and its systems are up and running again.
Service on Review panels. All agency reviews scheduled during a shutdown will be cancelled.