No Cost Extensions are available for most government grants for up to one year.  The directions below are specifically for NSF grants.  For procedures on obtaining a NCE on NIH or other government grants, please contact Dee Menning in Corporate and Foundation Relations.

No Cost Extensions for NSF grants

Overview

* There are two kinds of No Cost Extensions: Grantee Approved and NSF Approved. 

The first approach for an extension is Grantee Approved (must notify NSF at least 10 days prior to expiration date of grant), second request is NSF Approved and necessitates some prior correspondence with program officer (the Fastlane ask must be received by the NSF Program Office 45 days prior to expiration of grant).

The Process

- The PI makes a request for a No Cost Extension in NSF Fastlane (see Instructions for PI below)

- The SPO (CFR office) receives an email from NSF with subject line “NSF Notification forwarded to SPO/# award/PI name/ Grantee Approved No Cost Extension” and explanation of who submitted the notification/request and why (the PI’s explanation of why extension is requested).

- In Fastlane, from the Research Administration page, SPO selects ‘Notifications & Requests’  - then on next screen clicks on ‘Grantee Approved No Cost Extension’ for the desired award, checks over what the PI wrote on the ‘View Notification for Award’ page, and submits when ready.

- SPO will receive a final email: subject line reads “Grantee Approved No Cost Extension/award type/award #/ PI

Instructions for PI

No Cost Extension

• Go to www.fastlane.nsf.gov
• Select ‘Proposals, Awards, and Status’
• PI logs in to account with NSF ID # and password
• On the ‘Principal Investigator (PI)/Co-Principal Investigator (coPI) Management page ‘What Do You Want to Work On’ select ‘Award and Reporting Functions’
• Select ‘Notifications and Requests’
• In the ‘Prepare New’ box in the upper left of screen, choose the appropriate award # from the menu drop-down and select the button ‘Prepare New’ 
• Under ‘Grantee Notification Types’ find ‘Grantee Approved No-Cost Extension
• • first approach for an extension is "Grantee Approved" meaning, grantee initiated; there is not need to talk to program officer before requesting, OR
• Under ‘Grantee Request Types’ find ‘NSF approved NO-Cost Extension':
  
  • second extension (or a subsequent request) is NSF Approved and necessitates some correspondence with program officer
• Click on the ‘Prepare’ button at the bottom of the page
• You can revise the expiration date of the grant, specify the remaining funds, and fill out both a justification for the extension and a plan for using the unobligated funds (usually just a paragraph for each part).
• After it's ready to go, select ‘Forward to SPO’ and CFR/SPO will submit.