Notice Number: NOT-OD-16-067

Key Dates
Release Date: February 22, 2016

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Purpose

This Notice informs the biomedical research community of NIH’s implementation of FAPIIS requirements for all NIH grants and cooperative agreement awards, excluding fellowship awards.  These requirements implement the technical amendments that were made to the Department of Health and Human Services regulation regarding Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards at 45 CFR Part 75 published on January 20, 2016 in the Federal Register, Volume 81, Number 12 at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-01-20/html/2015-32101.htm.

Background
The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2009 (Public Law 110-417), was enacted on October 14, 2008.  Section 872 of this Act required the development and maintenance of an information system that contains specific information on the integrity and performance of covered federal agency contractors and federal financial assistance recipients.  The FAPIIS was developed to address these requirements.  FAPIIS provides publically available information about an institution's integrity, business ethics and past performance under financial assistance awards that is entered through the FAPIIS reporting module in the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), proceedings information that is included from the Entity Management section of the System for Award Management (SAM) database, and suspension/debarment information that is included from the Performance Information section of SAM.  Information on the eligibility of organizations for Government awards is currently available at https://www.fapiis.gov.

Policy
Effective February 16, 2016, NIH will implement the Federal Awardee Information and Integrity System (FAPIIS) policy requirement. In an effort to provide our applicants and recipients with maximum transparency related to the FAPIIS requirements, NIH will incorporate language into future funding opportunity announcements advising the public that FAPIIS is now a term and condition of award. This policy is applicable to all NIH grants and cooperative agreements except fellowships. NIH Institutes and/or Centers (ICs) will review any information in FAPIIS and consider whether a recipient continues to demonstrate a satisfactory record of executing programs or activities under Federal grants, cooperative agreements and procurement contracts; or its integrity and business ethics.  If an institution does not fully meet these standards, an award may still be considered if it is determined that the information in FAPIIS is not relevant to the current NIH award under consideration or if there are specific conditions that can appropriately mitigate the effects of any identified risk. 

NIH IC grant making officials will also use FAPIIS to report:  (1) determinations that an applicant or recipient is not qualified to receive an award and (2) terminations of awards for material failure to comply with award terms.   An applicant or recipient, at its option, may submit comments in response to agency reports made in FAPIIS through the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System.  NIH will consider these comments when making future funding decisions as described in 45 CFR Part 75.205, “Federal awarding agency review of risk posed by applicants.”  Reports by federal awarding agencies and comments from recipients will be made publically available through the FAPIIS public website (www.fapiis.gov). 

Recipient Reporting Requirements:  Beginning February 16, 2016, Federal financial assistance recipients will be subject to the reporting requirements provided at 45 CFR 75.113 and Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75.  Recipients that have currently active Federal grants, cooperative agreements, and procurement contracts from all Federal awarding agencies with a cumulative total value greater than $10,000,000 must report and maintain information in the System for Award Management (SAM)about civil, criminal, and administrative proceedings in connection with the award or performance of a Federal award that reached final disposition within the most recent five-year period.  The recipient must also make semiannual disclosures regarding such proceedings.  Proceedings information will be made publicly available in the designated integrity and performance system (currently FAPIIS).  Full reporting requirements and procedures are found in Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75.

The FAPIIS Public Access Search Page is provided at https://www.fapiis.gov/fapiis/index.action.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Division of Grants Policy
Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA)
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health
Telephone: 301-435-0949
Email: GrantsPolicy@od.nih.gov