New NIH Policy for Foreign Subawards

Effective January 1, 2024, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will require award recipients to include the following in subaward agreements with foreign subrecipients:

• "a provision requiring the foreign subrecipient to provide access to copies of all lab notebooks, all data, and all documentation that supports the research outcomes as described in the progress report, to the primary recipient with a frequency of no less than once per year, in alignment with the timing requirements for Research Performance Progress Report submission. Such access may be entirely electronic."

The offices of Pre-Award Research Administration and Research Subawards are working collaboratively to support CHOP's compliance with this guidance. Your Sponsored Projects Officer (SPO) can assist you with any questions at the proposal stage. The Grants and Contract Specialists (GCS) are working on updating existing agreements and will include language implementing this new requirement in new agreements moving forward.

Principal Investigators with foreign subawards on NIH funded projects should ensure they have access to the scientific documentation of their subrecipients on an annual basis.

This policy is in response to audits of the NIH conducted by the Office of the Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office. It is intended to help principal awardees of federal funding better comply with established requirements for access to subrecipient records.

At the proposal stage, the NIH expects language to be included in the subrecipient's Letter of Support to indicate that the subrecipient is aware of these requirements and can/will comply.

The NIH also expects recipients to update existing foreign subaward agreements within 60 days of the effective date to address the requirement.

For more information on the NIH foreign subrecipient policy, see NIH Notice NOT-OD-23-182 and the corresponding NIH Frequently Asked Questions webpage.