On Oct. 1, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a notice titled “Information for the NIH Extramural Community During the Lapse of Federal Government Funding.” In addition to the NIH contingency plan issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ahead of the shutdown, the Oct. 1 notice reiterates some information from the staffing plan and provides some additional information about the status of key NIH activities:
- Related to the management of current, active grants, eRA Commons and grants.gov will be operational but with no technical support. It is expected that the drawdown of funds will continue to be available but technical problems and manual approval requirements could delay access to funds. Reporting deadlines for grantees remain in place without extension, even if no NIH staff can review the submissions during furlough. No-cost extension notifications for grants that will lapse during the shutdown should be submitted as usual but those that require preapproval will not be reviewed.
- For grant applications responding to active notices of funding opportunity, submission deadlines do not change but NIH staff will not be available to answer questions or respond to technical difficulties.
- The Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare will not continue any activities during the shutdown.
- No NIH grant peer review meetings, advisory council meetings, issuance of new awards, and program/grants management activities will occur.
- New patients will not be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center (unless deemed medically necessary by the NIH Clinical Center Director).
- NIH will not hold scientific meetings at NIH facilities and NIH scientists will not travel to scientific meetings.
- Almost all NIH administrative functions will stop, including the onboarding of non-excepted staff, and many NIH employees will be unable to review or respond to emails, telephone calls, or mail.