Current and Pending (Other) Support Documents: What, When, and How

by Sheryl Soucy-Lubell and Stephanie Etting, Proposal Development Services, [email protected]
November 05, 2026

Quick Summary

CPOS documents help sponsors determine an investigator’s current and planned commitments through both Proposals and Active Projects and In-Kind Contributions.
Here, we provide clarity on Current and Pending (Other) Support (CPOS) forms, including when they should be submitted, what information is required, and how enter the information correctly in SciENcv.
Where to report effort in your proposal depends on 1) whether the commitment involves financial obligations, 2) the relevance to the current project (the one the CPOS form is being submitted for), and 3) whether it incurs an associated time commitment.

What is a Current and Pending (Other) Support document?

Current and Pending (Other) Support (CPOS) documents allow funding agencies to evaluate any present or potential commitments that may hinder your ability to do the proposed work. Potentially conflicting commitments come in different forms, including other ongoing research projects, consultation positions, relationships with foreign organizations, and less quantifiable factors such as lab/office space and student support. Determining what needs to be included in a CPOS document and where it should be entered can be confusing. Here, we hope to provide clarity on some of the common questions and challenges when completing a CPOS document, including:

When you should submit a CPOS form
What information needs to be included in a CPOS document
- Proposals and active projects
- In-kind contributions (including foreign involvement)
How to create a CPOS form in SciENcv
Key takeaways of reporting commitments in a CPOS document
Resources for preparing CPOS documents

When do you submit a CPOS form?

Sponsors and funding opportunities vary when a CPOS document should be submitted. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) typically requires CPOS forms at the time of proposal submission, whereas National Institutes of Health (NIH) most often requests them at the “Just-in-Time” stage. You should always check with your agency and specific funding call to determine when to submit this document. CPOS may also be required at the time of other submissions, such progress reports, no-cost-extensions, and change in PI.

Clarity on common points of confusion

Include the current project for which you're submitting the CPOS form in Proposals and Active Projects.
Reported effort equals both paid and unpaid time on a project.
Some roles/projects may report zero effort (E.g., mentors on a training grant or personnel on an equipment grant).
Reporting different types of effort:
1. Paid positions on projects are reported in Proposals and Active Projects
2. Un-paid positions related to the current project are reported in Facilities documents
3. Un-paid positions NOT related to the current project are reported in the In-Kind Contributions section

What goes into a CPOS document?

There are generally two categories of information required in a CPOS form, proposals and active projects and in-kind contributions.

Proposals and active projects

Most of what you enter in a CPOS document will fall under this category. For NSF, NIH, USDA, and other federal agencies using SciENcv, you will report financial commitments in the Proposals and Projects section of the form.

Items included in this section are characterized by financial obligations for which you have committed effort to a project, whether the committed effort is paid by the sponsor or by UC Davis. The effort that you enter into the form should be the sum of both your paid and unpaid work on each project.

Currently ongoing activities as well as pending projects (including the project for which you are submitting the form) should all be included in the Proposals and Active Projects section of the CPOS form.

Activities to report in this section include:

Any current research projects, whether UC Davis is the lead institution or a subaward
Research projects on which you are a mentor and are specifically committing effort to mentor a trainee (such as on an NIH K-award)
Any current research consulting, even if the payment is made to you as an individual and not through UC Davis
Pending research proposals that have been submitted
The current project you are proposing

Agencies ask for this information to ensure that you will not be overcommitted and unable to do the work you are proposing

These activities and items do NOT need to be reported on CPOS

Foreign conference travel
Mentoring activities that are part of your university appointment, and aren’t related to a funded, mentored-research project (including a mentor-only role on a training grant).

In-Kind Contributions

CPOS documents also ask for in-kind contributions, which broadly refer to non-monetary goods and services available to you that still require a commitment of your time (e.g., office/laboratory space, equipment, supplies, employees, students) valued as greater than $5,000. In-kind contributions may be currently active or planned.

Where in an application these goods and services are reported depends on 1) if there’s an unpaid time commitment and 2) if they are dedicated to the proposed project or not. Below is a summary table of where resources and activities may be reported based on these factors.

	Intended for use on the project being proposed	NOT intended for use on the project being proposed
In-kind item or service received with an associated time commitment	Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources	Current & Pending Support
In-kind item or service received without an associated time commitment	Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources	Does not need to be reported
All foreign involvement (even without an associated time commitment)	Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources	Current & Pending Support and/or Biosketch (see Foreign involvement section below)

Foreign involvement

Additionally, most relationships with foreign organizations should be reported on your CPOS form. This includes honorary (unpaid) appointments, or access to equipment or samples located outside of the U.S. This NSF Implementation Guidance for NSPM-33 provides excellent guidance on where in a proposal different types of resources and associations should be reported (both domestic and international). 

For a more thorough discussion of the types of foreign interactions that should be reported in your proposals, see our recent analysis, Agency Update: Foreign Collaborations and Research Security FAQ.

Examples of in-kind contributions to be reported on CPOS

These are only a few examples of non-monetary, research-related activities that qualify as in-kind contributions.

You are required to supervise students using equipment that has been provided to you for a different project
Foreign visiting scholars or students, paid by a university abroad, are working in your lab on a project other than the one being proposed
You are given specific access (not generally available to the research community) to a dataset hosted in another country for a project other than the one being proposed
A private company is sponsoring your travel and stay to perform research for another project at their research lab in another state or another country.

These activities and items do NOT need to be reported on CPOS

Access to core facilities or databases that are generally available to the scientific community, even if they require access permission
Resources, unpaid personnel, services, and equipment available to the proposed project (these should be described in the Facilities and Other Resources document and may be documented in other sections of the proposal such as letters)
Start-up packages from UC Davis and unrestricted gifts

Generating a CPOS document using SciENcv

Currently, DOE, NASA, NIH, NSF, and USDA require that CPOS documents are created and certified using SciENcv. To generate a SciENcv CPOS document, select the correct agency and form using the “New Document” menu. SciENcv requires reporting of financial commitments in the “Proposals and Active Projects”. The “In-Kind Contributions” section may be left blank if you have nothing to report.

The first time you create a CPOS document in SciENcv, you will need to select "Start with a blank document" from the New Document menu and enter all of the information manually. Once created, future CPOS documents can be generated using your initial document by selecting "Use an existing document" from the New Document menu and then updating that form as needed. These future CPOS documents can be created using your original form even if the new sponsor you are applying to is different from the one the original document was created for.

Importantly, SciENcv CPOS forms require very specific information and formatting that may differ from what was previously acceptable as a text document CPOS. For details of what information is required and how it should be formatted, view our Annotated SciENcv CPOS document. This resource also includes helpful examples of different types of support that should be included in CPOS documents.

Key Takeaways

Current and Pending (Other) Support documents can generate confusion when it is not clear where in a proposal to report potentially conflicting obligations. When deciding where to report activities, ask yourself:

Does the activity incur a financial obligation and person-hours? If so, it would be reported in the CPOS Proposals and Projects section.
Does the activity/resource not incur a financial obligation, but does require person-hours and involve equipment, supplies, personnel, etc. that are related to the proposed project? If yes, then this should be reported in the Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources document of the proposal.
Does the activity/resource not incur a financial obligation, but does require person-hours while not contributing to the current project? If so, then this should be reported in the In-Kind Contribution section of the CPOS.
Lastly, if the activity/resource does not incur a financial obligation or person-hours, and is not related to the proposed project, then no reporting is necessary.