In February last year I blogged about the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s request for comments on proposed federal grant policy reforms. These policies, contained in multiple documents known as circulars, contain Fed-wide regulations on spending, not just for research grants. Many grantees and stakeholder organizations came forth and contributed comments. This information was taken into account by OMB to bring a number of these changes into fruition. The new guidance, “Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards”, was announced by OMB in December as one consolidated omnicircular. Here are just a few highlights:

• New effort reporting guidelines give grantees much more flexibility in how investigators document their time and effort on their award.
• Updated rules on charging administrative costs to grants as direct costs.
• Updated rules on directly charging computing devices that are necessary and support the work of, but are not solely dedicated to, a Federal award.
• Family-friendly policies allowing grantees more flexibility to address temporary dependent-care costs.
• All types of grantee institutions are allowed a one-time extension of indirect (“F&A”) costs, i.e. the option of extending negotiated rates for up to 4 years subject to approval of the Federal agency.
• Grantee organizations that have never received a negotiated indirect cost rate may choose to use a minimum 10% modified total direct cost rate instead.

Read more at Rock Talk by Dr. Sally Rockey, NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Reseach.