North Pacific Research Board

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

 

The Alaska SeaLife Center, located in Seward, is the fiscal agent for the North Pacific Research Board.

NPRB staff ensures timely reporting and fields requests from grantees. The grants and contracts administrators at the SeaLife Center handle complex budget issues and track funds.

Are NPRB funds federal?

Yes. All NPRB funds are federal with a CFDA number of 11.472. All federal grant rules apply, including the Fly America Act.

How do I...

Request a budget change

Your agreement with NPRB states: “Reallocation of funds between or among the direct cost categories in the subawardee's NPRB Budget Summary Form in Appendix 1 must be approved in writing by NPRB prior to any such reallocated expenditure occurring, if that reallocation exceeds ten percent of the total subaward budget amount.”

Projects with one subaward agreement

Reallocation of funds between direct cost categories requires approval only if the cumulative amount of budget reallocations is greater than 10% of the total budget amount. If you need to exceed this 10% threshold, you must request approval from NPRB. You can reallocate between years within a single cost category without needing to request approval.

Projects with multiple subaward agreements

The "10% threshold" stated above refers to the total amount (cumulative across budget categories) being reallocated per institution.

 

 

Example: A project has a total budget of $100,000. $80,000 goes to Organization 1; $20,000 goes to Organization 2. Organization 1 needs to request approval only if its cumulative budget reallocation is greater than $8,000, and Organization 2 only if its reallocation exceeds $2,000. So the 10% is at the institute or awardee level; not at the overall project level, and also not at the individual budget category level.

Please e-mail requests for budget changes to both the NPRB Science Director and the SeaLife Center. Requests must include a completed Rebudget Request Form and justification for the need for the budget changes.

Note: For BSIERP projects, email your request to the Program Manager and the SeaLife Center.

If an invoice is submitted that shows expenses exceeding the 10% threshold, this invoice will not be paid until a budget change request is approved.

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Travel to a foreign country

NOAA must approve all foreign travel that occurs on NPRB grants. This foreign travel approval process can take up to eight weeks, so please make your request as early as possible.

Requests must include:

  1. Full name of the meeting/conference (website link if available)
  2. Itinerary (including dates of travel, dates of meeting/conference)
  3. Estimated costs for:
    Airfare: (round-trip, on XX airline)
    Note: The Fly America Act applies to all travel using NPRB funding. You must use a U.S. flag air carrier on every portion of a flight route unless you qualify for a waiver. Contact the SeaLife Center for more details.
    Lodging: $xx/night for x nights
    Meals: $xx/day for x days
    Registration Fee: $xx
    Ground transportation: $xx
    Mileage: $xx
    Other/visa: $xx
    Total: $xx
  4. A short (2-4 sentences) justification for the need to go on the trip. If you are making a presentation or chairing a session at a conference, include details on the presentation or session.

If foreign travel was specified in your original project budget, the overall release of funds for your project will exclude the foreign travel funds. Each foreign travel trip must be approved individually via the process outlined above.

For projects resulting from the annual request for proposal process, please e-mail requests for foreign travel to Carrie Eischens and the SeaLife Center.

For BSIERP projects, email your request to Tom Van Pelt and the SeaLife Centerr.

For GOAIERP projects, email your request to Danielle Dickson and theSeaLife Center.

 

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Apply for a no-cost extension

Your agreement with NPRB states: “The NPRB executive director may in his/her sole discretion grant extensions of time in writing if requested at least thirty days before the conclusion of this Agreement.”

NPRB staff consider no-cost extensions on a case-by-case basis, with no guarantee of approval. Please submit requests for a no-cost extensions at least 30 days before the end of the current project period.  For projects funded through the annual RFP, send your request to the the Science Program Manager and the SeaLife Center. For BSIERP or GOAIERP projects, email your request to the respective BSIERP or GOAIERP Program Manager and the SeaLife Center.

Requests must include:

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Submit a progress report

Semiannual Progress Reports are due beginning with the first July 15 and January 15 after the contract start date, for the first and last six months of the calendar year, respectively, and then every semester thereafter until the contract is completed. We need just one report per project, not per investigator; PIs on a project can "team up" to write the progress report if they wish. If the first report comes due before substantial progress has been made, simply note that in your initial report. Download Progress Report Template

Note: The progress report template was revised and its instructions clarified in November 2008. Any reports that do not follow this new format will be returned for revision.

Note: Submitted invoices are not paid until progress reports are received. Timely reporting ensures that funding continues to flow smoothly to your project. If you have questions regarding your project or contract, please contact the NPRB Science Director.

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Submit a final report

Your agreement with NPRB states: “The Contractor shall submit a final programmatic report within sixty days of the end of the project period indicated in Section 1. NPRB may in its sole discretion choose to treat the final programmatic report as a draft final report, and to submit that draft to peer review. The Contractor will respond timely to all peer review comments, and will revise the draft to a final report in accordance with peer review decisions.”

Your agreement also states: “Ninety percent of all incurred costs authorized and properly reported by the Contractor shall be paid by NPRB within thirty days … The remaining ten percent shall be paid to the Contractor within thirty days following acceptance of the final programmatic report and associated metadata.”

Your final report will be due 60 days after the ending date of your agreement. Please refer to the Final Report Format and Review Criteria document for further guidance.

Final reports are read thoroughly, and revisions are frequently required. Your report will be compared against your original proposal, so you must specifically address why any objectives were not met.

Final release of funds

The final 10% of the total budget will be released upon approval of your final report and successful transfer of metadata and data to the NPRB. If revisions are required, this amount will be held until your revisions satisfy the reviewer(s).

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Submit data and metadata

Your agreement with NPRB states: “The Contractor shall publish and make its results available to the public and other researchers as requested by NPRB. The Contractor agrees to report its data to an agreed-upon system, in accordance with specifications in a data management and information transfer plan, which will be developed by NPRB, in consultation with the Contractor.” Learn more

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Request a publication number for an accepted manuscript

As noted in "Release of Funds" notifications, NPRB should be acknowledged in all publications, articles, or media releases derived from NPRB-funded projects.

For scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, we issue NPRB publication numbers for inclusion in the acknowledgement section of your manuscript.  Here's how it works: 

  1. AFTER your manuscript has been accepted, but BEFORE the galley proof stage, please send us an email that must include:
    1. The NPRB project number(s) referred to by the manuscript
    2. full citation and manuscript abstract

  2. We will reply to you with a publication number (please allow at least 2 weeks for reply)
  3. After the paper is published, please follow up by sending a PDF of the paper to us for inclusion in our online publication library. 

A note on BEST-BSIERP projects

We issue separate publication numbers for the BEST-BSIERP Bering Sea Project. If your work is also part of BEST-BSIERP, please refer to the BEST-BSIERP publications page for more information.