Federal Updates Frequently Asked Questions for Researchers

As soon as you receive a termination notice or stop work order (SWO), immediately send a copy of the notice to the Office of Research and Innovation at: vcresearch@ucsd.edu. Copy your Department/Division Head and Dean.

In your email:

• Include a copy of the guidance and any other communication you received from the funding agency.
• In the subject line, put: “Termination Notice” or “Stop Work Order”, as applicable that this is regarding an award termination or Stop Work Order.
• Include in the email the following information:
• The PI’s name
• The UCSD Award # (this is not the same as the agency’s award number)
• The Funding Source (including original source of funding if the award is a subaward).

When you forward the notification to the Office of Research and Innovation by emailing it to vcresearch@ucsd.edu, the Research Disruption Response Team starts gathering information about the impacts of the termination or SWO. We’ll pull together data about personnel paid on the award, outstanding invoices and purchase orders, compliance areas that will need to be engaged (like IRB or IACUC), and other relevant information. We share that information with the VC-area AVC and your Dean so that they are fully aware of the scope of the impacts of this disruption. We’ll let you know when this information has been provided to them, so that you can work with them to begin planning how to respond to these disruptions.

You should promptly inform your subawardees that you have received a notice of termination or a SWO. You should inform all subawardees that, as a result, the subawardees should immediately stop work and should take all reasonable steps to avoid incurring additional costs under the affected subaward.

On behalf of the university, OCGA will officially notify your subawardees of the disruption to funding, and request that they stop work and send all outstanding invoices to UC San Diego.

In many cases, a termination notice or a SWO may be appealed by filing an appeal with the funding agency. For grants, section 200.342 of Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations requires each federal agency to maintain written procedures for processing appeals. The procedures must provide grant recipients an opportunity to object and provide information challenging the agency action.

If you believe that grounds may exist to justify an appeal of a termination notice or SWO, prepare a letter of appeal that includes a detailed description of why you believe the agency action is inappropriate. Normally, the deadline to file an appeal is very short, usually 30 days from the date you received the notice of the agency action, so if you are considering an appeal, please do not delay.

Like grant proposals, appeals require the signature of a UC San Diego Authorized Official, so please be sure to send the final draft of the appeal (in .doc format) to OCGA at researchadmin@ucsd.edu at least 5 business days before the agency deadline (usually no later than 30 days after notification of award termination) so that it can be submitted on time.

Please be aware that if your award is a subaward issued by another institution, any right to appeal would be determined by the terms of the subaward and you would not be able to file an appeal directly with the funding agency.

IMPORTANT: filing an appeal DOES NOT exempt you from complying with the termination notice or SWO’s requirement that you cease activity on the award and take all reasonable steps necessary to avoid incurring additional costs under the award while the appeal is pending.

You will need to work with your academic unit, Human Resources and Academic Personnel to determine how to proceed. While individual circumstances will vary, all personnel actions must comply with applicable policies and/or collective bargaining agreements.

While you must work with Human Resources and Academic Personnel to determine how to proceed, in general, three options are available for research staff affected by the termination of an award or a SWO. Staff may be reassigned to other duties if there is an appropriate funding source; staff may be temporarily laid off; or staff may be permanently laid off.

While each case must be assessed individually, the following general principles will apply to most cases of terminations or stop work orders:

• Costs incurred before the notice of termination or SWO are allowable.
• Costs resulting from financial obligations that were incurred before the notice of termination or SWO are allowable if those costs cannot be avoided or discontinued despite making all reasonable efforts to eliminate or minimize those costs.
• Costs incurred in anticipation of a notice of termination or SWO are not allowable.
• Costs identified as allowable in the notice of termination or SWO are allowable.
• Costs related to preparing, publishing, or printing final reports are allowable.
• Costs related to the termination and settlement of subawards are allowable.
• Costs related to the disposition of equipment may or may not be allowable depending on the circumstances.

This is not a complete list. Before incurring costs as part of winding down a grant, consult with OCGA and SPF to request prior approval. Be prepared to explain why a cost must be incurred and what steps you have or will take to minimize those costs. The loss of research results is not in and of itself a valid justification for continuing to incur costs after a termination notice or SWO.

Termination notices require that closeout procedures be followed, and these are generally allowable expenses. All active study protocols should be shut down as quickly as possible while following standards for safety and compliance – please work closely with the appropriate offices (IRB, Clinical Trials, IACUC, ACP, etc.) to implement those processes and to document why the costs could not be avoided and all steps taken to minimize the unavoidable costs. All final reporting is also required.