Contingency Funding

This program provides the opportunity for researchers who have received a stop work order or termination to apply for contingency funds.

Eligibility

1. Applicant must be PI (or Project Director) on a federal award for which funding was discontinued prior to the end date, through no action of the PI or routine course of grant activity.
2. Applicant must not have adequate reserves in a PI Support account available to cover the costs.

Criteria

1. PI must have an official stop-work order or a written request to terminate a specific grant or contract.
2. Any existing project funding that has been received must have been exhausted.
3. Requests must include a timeline including when federal funding is expected to stop and/or additional funding anticipated (e.g. funding for a new proposal would begin).
4. If funding is restored and retroactive, repayment of funds is required.
5. Funding requested must have been included in the budget of the impacted federal contract(s) or grant(s).
6. Departments and/or College must match the requested funding.

Eligible Expenses

Funding can be used to support the following expense types:

• Salaries & benefits for existing Faculty, A&P, and USPS employees and graduate research assistants who cannot be reassigned to other work,
• E&G funded positions  are not eligible for contingency funding, this includes summer salary for 9-month faculty
• Positions included in the request must have adequate responsibilities to perform during the contingency period
• Expenses needed to safely wind down certain studies involving human subjects
• In limited circumstances, critical research expenses outside of salaries may be considered with appropriate justification
• Tuition waivers should be sought from all other sources before seeking contingency funding

Timeline

The program will provide up to three months of coverage for individual investigator awards, taking into account the following:

• The remaining duration of the terminated contract or grant
• Any anticipated response from the federal government such as, an appeal decision, decision for pending proposals, etc.

Longer coverage will be considered for multi-PI or center grants which are terminated.

Application

The following information should be included with your request for funding:

• Brief statement outlining the impacted contract(s) and/or grant(s) and whether the determination is, or will be, appealed
• A list of pending or in-progress proposals, including the due date for application and anticipated decision for funding (if known)
• Budget & Budget Justification for requested funding
• For personnel, an outline of the duties that will be performed during the funding period must be included
• Scope of work outlining the work to be performed during the funding period

While all formats will be accepted, we recommend drafting a memo with the aforementioned information, including signatures for the approvals below.

Approvals & Determination

Applications must be approved by the Department Chair or Center Director and the Dean.

The Office of the VP for Research & Provost Office will review all applications and provide a determination within one week of receiving the request.

Awards Pending Incremental Funding

• Awards that are pending incremental funding should be treated as advances and must be backed by the department and/or college per policy 7A-1 Authorization for Advance on Externally-Funded Projects.
• Due to the uncertainty of funding at this time, Department Chairs & Deans must approve all Advance requests, including those for incrementally funded continuation awards.
• Awards in advance that are terminated can retroactively request funding per these guidelines

Please submit the requests to Jenn Garye jgarye@fsu.edu and Kerry Peluso kpeluso@fsu.edu