Be Proactive

• Log in to your accounts at Research.gov or eRA commons to check the status of any required reports or actions.  Automated systems are expected to be operational during a shutdown, however technical problems or service interruptions, should they occur, may not be immediately addressed by personnel.
• Stay in communication with the contracts and grants analysts in your department, center, or administrative unit in order to monitor the burn rate of expenses on your federal awards.

Proposals and Submissions

• Based on prior government shutdowns, we expect that proposal preparation systems still will be online during a shutdown, however proposals likely will not be processed until normal operations resume. It is unclear if Help Desks or the Grants.gov contact center will be available during a shutdown. Thus, it is possible that if you encounter any technical difficulties with submission, there may not be staff available to respond or to fix glitches.
• Peer reviews and study sections are not expected to occur. If you were scheduled to travel to a study section or review panel, you should work with the fiscal staff in your department to process the travel cancellation.
• Award processing will be delayed. If you have a proposal at any point in the proposal cycle, including the steps leading up to a notice-of-award and executing a contract, do not expect any action during a shutdown, or even for a few days or weeks after operations resume. Due to the uncertainty of the duration of any shutdown, advance accounts should not be set up at this time.

Award Management

• Generally speaking, a government shutdown will have little to no immediate impact on the ability of in-place federally funded research to continue, although it is prudent to reduce expenses to the extent practical without significantly impacting the research. Please note that some federal sponsors may issue formal suspension notices or stop work orders during the shutdown.  Please carefully review all notices you receive from your sponsor. You must adhere to the requirements delineated in these notices. Please contact Denise Ehlen, Executive Associate Vice Chancellor for Research (dmehlen@ucdavis.edu), if you receive a suspension or stop work order and/or if you have questions about managing your award during the shutdown.
• During prior shutdowns, processes that required automated systems, and did not require intervention by federal personnel, could continue. However, in 2025, some award and payment approval processes have been instituted that require additional oversight by personnel. A shutdown may further delay such approvals until personnel return to work.
• Agencies will be prohibited from issuing supplements or no-cost time extensions.

Recommendations

Continue working on federally sponsored projects, but be aware of the following:

• Personnel in federal agencies will not be available to address issues
• Continue to submit reports on schedule through automated systems
• Do not expect any forward progress on proposal or award processing
• Communicate with leadership (department chair, dean’s office, etc.) if you have an emergency need to process funds that are stalled due to a shutdown
• Once the shutdown is lifted, there may still be delays as the federal government and its employees resume operations. Do not expect immediate resolution on pending actions in the days or even weeks after the shutdown has ended.

Resources

• UCOP Guidance on Federal Government Shutdowns
• Government Shutdowns and Executive Branch Operations: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Agency Guidance for individual federal sponsors can be found here