Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
An NIH grant has 18 percent unobligated funds at end of year 1, automatically carried forward to year 2.
- Is an instance
A Horizon Europe consortium rebudgets unspent year-1 personnel funds into year-2 travel under the GA.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Loss of unspent funds at closeout is the opposite of carry-forward.
- Not an instance
Supplemental funds awarded mid-grant are not carry-forward.
Editorial commentary
Carry-forward addresses the reality that grant spending rarely matches budget exactly. Under US federal expanded authorities, automatic carry-forward of unobligated balances is permitted for most NIH and NSF grants up to defined thresholds (typically 25 percent of the current-year budget), with notification rather than prior approval. Larger balances require formal carry-forward requests with justification. Horizon Europe permits intra-project rebudgeting that functionally achieves carry-forward.
References
- US NIH Grants Policy Statement on automatic carry-over; NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide.
Also known as
Carryover · Unobligated balance carry-forward
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Carry-forward"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/carry-forward" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Carry-forward",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/carry-forward",
"description": "The authorised transfer of unobligated grant funds from one budget period to the next within a multi-year grant, allowing the recipient to use those funds in a subsequent period rather than losing them.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/funding-lifecycle-and-financial-vocabulary/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/carry-forward",
"sameAs": [
"Carryover",
"Unobligated balance carry-forward"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
