By Melanie Baucom, UNC General Administration, Office of Federal Government Relations

After 16 days of a partial government shutdown, Congress passed a temporary Continuing Resolution (CR) to re-open the government and extend the debt ceiling.  The agreement is temporary and leaves unresolved full FY14 spending levels and whether automatic spending cuts, known as sequester, will continue in January.

The agreement established the first bicameral budget conference since 2009 that will work on deciding next year’s spending and possibly consider an overhaul of the tax code and changes to entitlement programs.  If the conference committee fails to come to an agreement by December 13, the government could shut down again on January 15, 2014 and would face a default on the nation’s debts on February 7, 2014.

Although agencies are now open, the three-week shutdown has delayed many activities and has created a backlog of research grant applications.  The NIH and NSF have both released post-shutdown information which can be found below.

The NIH:

The government shutdown came at one of the busiest periods and it will inevitably take some time to bring the extramural program back to full strength (In a piece by the Deputy Director for Extramural Research; found here).

•   **The NIH has said to keep an eye on the NIH Guide for its updates (regarding information below)**

•   ALL October grant application submission deadlines will be rescheduled to dates in November so that applicants will have access to NIH staff, help desks, and electronic systems

o   Specific dates will be published in the NIH Guide as soon as they are worked out

•   eRA Commons and other NIH extramural electronic systems to be up and accessible to the public on Monday, October 21

•   Review meetings will be rescheduled and others may need to be cancelled in order to allow reviewers enough time to have access to applications and to complete their reviews

•   NIH will also post a notice on its operations during a continuing resolution as soon as it is available!

The NSF (See letter from Acting Director):

It will take time and extra effort to work through the backlog of activities.  Leadership at NSF is working to establish priorities that will enable them to resume normal operations as quickly as possible while minimizing the extra burden on staff.

·         BFA will establish and publish on the NSF website within one week agency-wide policies for proposal deadline extensions and other grant-related actions

·         Advisory committee meetings will be canceled through December, unless an exception is granted by Acting Director Cora Marrett

·         Panel and PI meetings will be postponed through the end of October, pending directorate and office review