A formal request submitted to a sponsor to amend an aspect of an awarded project, such as scope, budget allocation, personnel, equipment, or timeline, typically requiring sponsor review and approval before the change takes effect.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A PI submits a change request to NIH for a key-personnel change replacing a departing co-investigator.
Is an instance
A Horizon Europe consortium submits an amendment request to add a new beneficiary mid-project.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A routine purchase within budget category is not a change request.
Not an instance
An internal team-meeting decision without sponsor notification is not a formal change request.

Editorial commentary

Change requests are the operational mechanism for managing planned changes within the constraints of the awarded project. Categories of change request include scope amendments, budget rebudgeting (within and across categories), key-personnel changes, equipment substitutions, extension requests (no-cost extensions), and subaward additions or modifications. Each sponsor has its own thresholds for which changes require prior approval versus notification-only. Misclassification can lead to disallowance of costs.

References

US NIH Grants Policy Statement on prior-approval requests; Horizon Europe amendment process via Funding & Tenders Portal.

Also known as

Project change request · Amendment request · Change order (project)

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Change request (project)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/change-request-project" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/change-request-project",
  "name": "Change request (project)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/change-request-project",
  "description": "A formal request submitted to a sponsor to amend an aspect of an awarded project, such as scope, budget allocation, personnel, equipment, or timeline, typically requiring sponsor review and approval before the change takes effect.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-lifecycle#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/change-request-project",
  "sameAs": [
    "Project change request",
    "Amendment request",
    "Change order (project)"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:23:00",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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