Funder Policy & Application Rules
The operational rules funders set for applicants and awardees: resubmission policy, caps on simultaneous awards, CV and biosketch format mandates, allowable-cost and lump-sum funding changes, and award terms and conditions. Distinct from budget levels — this beat is about the rules of the competition rather than the size of the pot, and it is the beat research administrators act on most directly.
Coverage (43)
- DOE’s Conflict of Interest and Commitment Rule Is Now in Force
The Department of Energy’s final rule at 2 CFR part 910 subpart C took effect on August 17, 2026, requiring every DOE financial assistance applicant and recipient to hold a written conflict of interes…
- NIH Director’s Letter Ends a Pitt Health-Disparities Grant
NIH Director Bhattacharya personally signed an Aug. 4, 2026 letter terminating a Pitt health-disparities grant, following a July Emory cut. What the letter-vs-notice difference means for appeals.…
- EO 14332: What It Changes for Discretionary Grants
EO 14332 (Aug. 7, 2025) directs new termination-for-convenience rights, F&A-cost preferences, and DEI-linked terms for discretionary federal grants.…
- NIH All of Us: Pediatric Expansion in 2026
NIH plans to widen All of Us pediatric enrollment to ages 0-12 in 2026, even as the program absorbs a steep funding drop from FY2023 levels.…
- RDA’s P27: London Plenary Pilots New Cadence
RDA’s 27th Plenary meets in London Oct 6-8, 2026, hosted by UKRI — piloting a new cadence pairing yearly virtual and in-person meetings.…
- DMPTool’s Rebuild: What’s Changing, and When
DMPTool is rebuilding on a modern API architecture for machine-actionable DMPs. Its summer 2026 target has slipped to late 2026 after NIH/NSF changes.…
- ARPA-H’s ACTR: A Trial Site Within 30 Minutes
ARPA-H’s Advancing Clinical Trial Readiness (ACTR) initiative aims to put a clinical trial site within 30 minutes of 90% of eligible Americans. Here’s what the program covers, its three funding focus …
- Northwestern’s $2.3M NIH Falsification Settlement
Northwestern paid $2.3M under HHS-OIG’s Civil Monetary Penalties Law after self-disclosing a Feinberg researcher’s falsified NIH grant data.…
- NIH’s 2026 Push on Replication and Reproducibility
NIH has folded replication and reproducibility into its 2026 Gold Standard Science agenda: a new agency-wide Highlighted Topic, continued Common Fund replication funding, and an RFI on rewarding rigor…
- Quebec’s FRQ Makes Narrative CV Mandatory in 2026
As of January 2026, Quebec’s FRQ requires the narrative CV-FRQ for all its competitions, replacing the Canadian Common CV across all FRQ-funded programs.…
- NIH Weighs Cap on Simultaneous PI Grants
NIH’s RFI NOT-OD-26-086 proposes capping how many Research Project Grants one PI can hold at once. Comments closed August 3, 2026; no final policy yet.…
- NEH Asks: Do You Still Want Your Grant Back?
In April 2025, NEH terminated more than 1,400 grants worth over $100 million; a federal judge has since ruled the mass termination unconstitutional. Starting June 30, 2026, NEH began asking each affec…
- NIH’s Lump-Sum Funding Rule Is Cutting Award Rates
A 2026 accounting change requires NIH to obligate a multi-year grant’s full cost up front instead of year-by-year, shrinking how many new awards its budget can fund. Reported figures show R01-equivale…
- UKRI’s April 2026 No-Resubmission Rule
From 1 April 2026, UKRI no longer accepts uninvited resubmissions of rejected proposals. Here is what changed and how it reshapes grant-writing strategy.…
- Simpler.Grants.gov: What the Grants.gov Modernization Changes for Applicants
HHS’s Simpler.Grants.gov initiative has shipped a new default search, account and submission-tracking tools, and a public API through 2025-2026 — but full application submission and a legacy Grants.go…
- NSF Relaunches SBIR/STTR for FY26 With $250M and a New Strategic Breakthrough Tier
NSF restarted SBIR/STTR for FY26 with $250M, a new $30M Strategic Breakthrough tier, a $40M instrumentation pilot, and a July 27, 2026 deadline.…
- AHRQ’s Wave of Grant “Non-Awards”: What Research Administrators Need to Know
AHRQ has issued near-identical “non-award” letters ending continuation funding for dozens of active grants, citing portfolio prioritization. HHS says these are not terminations; grantees and advocacy …
- Wellcome Trust’s 2026 Eligibility Changes: What Research Offices Need to Know
Wellcome revises grant eligibility from 1 July 2026 and restricts lead-applicant hosts to the UK and LMICs in Africa, South and SE Asia from 29 October 2026.…
- NSF 26-022: What the Restricted-Entity Collaboration Ban Covers
NSF 26-022 bars NSF-funded collaboration with entities on seven federal restricted-party lists, starting FY2027. Here’s what it does and doesn’t cover.…
- OMB’s 2026 Proposed Rule and “Covered Foreign Countries”: What It Actually Restricts
OMB’s May 2026 proposed rule would bar federal grant funds from collaboration with “covered foreign countries.” Here’s what the rule’s text actually says, why the widely-cited “17 countries” figure is…
- Executive Order 14292: New Biological Research Security Requirements
Executive Order 14292 (May 2025) paused federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research and set OSTP deadlines for oversight rules, now overdue.…
- NIH Ends Continuous Submission: Late-Application Deadline Tightens August 10, 2026
NIH Notice NOT-OD-26-064 ends Continuous Submission after August 10, 2026, and narrows late-application eligibility for all applicants NIH-wide.…
- NIH’s Indirect Cost Cap Litigation: How It Ended
NIH’s 15% indirect-cost cap is dead: the First Circuit upheld the injunction against it in January 2026, and DOJ let its Supreme Court appeal deadline lapse in April 2026 without filing. Congress has …
- NSF Names 12 New Regional Innovation Engines Across 20 States
NSF named 12 new Regional Innovation Engines across 20 states on July 14, 2026, each eligible for up to $160M over 10 years.…
- OMB Proposed 2 CFR 200 Rewrite: Current Status
OMB’s proposed rewrite of the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) closed for comment July 13, 2026. What it would change, and its status toward an Oct. 1 target.…
- ARC’s 2026 Generative AI Policy: What Changed for Grant Applicants and Assessors
The ARC’s updated Generative AI policy took effect 28 April 2026, setting rules for applicants, assessors, and research offices.…
- University Budget Cuts and Research Layoffs Continue Into Summer 2026
US university budget cuts and layoffs have continued into summer 2026, with new rounds at Johns Hopkins, the University of Minnesota, The New School, and others. Some are explicitly tied to NIH, NSF, …
- TAGFA Revised: What Changes April 1, 2026 for Use of Grant Funds
CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC’s revised Tri-Agency Guide on Financial Administration takes effect April 1, 2026. The key change: a new Buy-Canadian purchasing expectation for grant-funded spend, plus a tight…
- NOT-OD-26-062: NIH Domestic Subaward Rule
Effective June 1, 2026, NIH requires prior approval before adding a new domestic subaward not in the original approved application.…
- NSF PAPPG 26-200: What Changed Dec. 8, 2025
NSF’s PAPPG 26-200 supplement (eff. Dec. 8, 2025) revised SBIR pitch rules, funding caps, equipment thresholds, and research-security requirements.…
- NIH Begins Enforcing Common Forms: SciENcv Biosketch and ORCID Linkage Required Starting May 8, 2026
NIH’s Common Forms leniency period ended May 8, 2026: eRA now blocks SciENcv biosketch/support submissions with unlinked ORCID or eRA Commons.…
- DHS Ends ‘Duration of Status’: A 4-Year Cap on F-1/J-1 Admission Starting September 15, 2026
DHS ends open-ended F-1/J-1 admission on Sept. 15, 2026, capping it at up to 4 years with a separate USCIS extension filing – and the rule is now being challenged in court.…
- Harvard’s Federal Research Funding Fight: Where It Stands in 2026
Where Harvard’s federal research funding fight stands in 2026, and why the appeal’s jurisdictional question matters for every funded institution.…
- UCLA Federal Grant Funding: What “Restored” Actually Means Right Now
Federal judge Rita Lin has repeatedly ordered NSF and NIH to restore suspended UCLA grants via preliminary injunction in an ongoing UC faculty lawsuit — roughly $81M (NSF, Aug 2025) and $500M/500 gran…
- Fogarty International Center’s Proposed Elimination: The FY2026 Status
Congress rejected the White House’s FY2026 proposal to eliminate the Fogarty International Center, funding NIH’s global health research arm at $95 million — flat with FY2025. Here’s the current status…
- NIH’s FY2026 5-Business-Day Grant Payment Rule Explained
The FY2026 Labor-HHS appropriations report directs HHS to process grant disbursements within 5 business days, with exceptions. What NIH awardees should know.…
- NIH’s 27-to-8 Institute Consolidation: 2026 Status
Congress rejected NIH’s 27-to-8 institute consolidation in FY2026 funding, but administrative restructuring continues. Here’s the current status.…
- NSF Funding Cuts, Grant Terminations, and the 2026 Litigation Landscape
NSF’s indirect cost cap attempt was blocked and Congress has barred new rate changes. Grant terminations tied to DEI/environmental-justice criteria are being litigated on two separate tracks with diff…
- Cancer Research Funding Cuts in 2026: Proposed vs. Enacted
NCI’s FY2026 budget was proposed for a 37-43% cut; Congress instead raised NIH overall slightly, but cancer grants are still funded below recommended levels.…
- NIH funding cuts in 2026: what actually happened
Congress rejected Trump’s proposed 40% NIH cut in FY2026, funding NIH at $48.7B — but grant terminations and indirect-cost fights still reshaped awards.…
- NIH’s April 2026 Notice Quietly Reverses Indirect-Cost Flexibilities
NIH’s April 2026 notice NOT-OD-26-072 reinstates the $25,000 subaward cap and 10% de minimis rate, rescinding 2025 flexibilities — a separate action from the litigated 15% cost cap.…
- NSF Broader Impacts in 2026: What Actually Changed (and What Didn’t)
NSF didn’t rewrite Broader Impacts in 2026 — the real change is the April 2025 Statement of Priorities, still governing every 2026 proposal.…
- The case for narrative CVs beyond UKRI
UKRI’s Resume for Research and Innovation has matured. Why other funders should adopt narrative-CV formats, and the practical lessons from five years of UKRI experience.…
