Updates on Federal Executive Orders and Research Activities
The Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI) continues to monitor the 2025 presidential administration transition. Those updates are posted on a separate page. Click the resources for researchers link below.
This page is updated monthly to include critical updates associated with federal funding.
Institutional Updates
New Authorized Organization Representative on Proposals
Proposals with due dates on or after November 10, 2025, must list our Interim Vice President for Research and Innovation, Geraldine Richmond, Ph.D., on the Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) line of each application. All other address information will remain the same.
Required International Shipment Form
Departments shipping materials internationally (excluding immigration, marketing, or admissions materials and published research materials such as journal articles) must submit an International Shipment Form before sending through UO Mail Services or external carriers, such as the US Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, or DHL.
Once submitted, the International Shipment Form provides the shipper with concrete next steps in the shipment process. If the shipper plans to use UO Mail Services, the form will provide a pre-populated document to print and affix to the package.
Forms are reviewed within one business day, but additional compliance steps may be required based on shipment contents.
Unauthorized shipment of export-controlled items may lead to significant federal, civil, or criminal penalties, including but not limited to temporary prohibitions on international transactions. Departments are responsible for ensuring they have proper approvals.
Learn more on the Export Controls website.
Lewis Center for Neuroimaging and IRB
Updates If you are conducting research with devices in the Lewis Center for Neuroimaging (LCNI), such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) devices, there are institution-specific requirements and template language to include in your IRB submissions. The Lewis Center for Neuroimaging Standard Operating Procedures (LCNI SOPS PDF document), informed consent guidance(PDF document), and informed consent template (Word document) were all updated in September to incorporate updated details about MRIs and pregnancy. The consent guidance and template were also updated to improve accessibility and make a few other minor changes. Moving forward, researchers should use these updated LCNI SOPs, updated consent template, and consent guidance for their IRB submissions.
Monitoring Targeted Funding Opportunities
We strongly encourage principal investigators (PIs) and departmental grant administrators (DGAs) to regularly check the status of targeted future solicitations prior to submission in case of last-minute solicitation cancellation or expiration given the frequent changes in budgets/programs at federal agencies. Sponsored Projects Services (SPS) will help monitor as well, but we encourage PIs to please check regularly.
Sponsored Activity Dashboard
The Office of the Vice President has added a Sponsored Activity Dashboard to the research website. This new tool provides interactive insights into the university’s externally funded proposals and awards and its research expenditures. The data is pulled from UO’s Electronic Proposal Clearance System (EPCS) daily and from Banner monthly. The dashboard replaces the research stats tool and the Sponsored Projects Services annual report.
The dashboard can be accessed from the Reports and Stats webpage (DuckID required to log in). Users can navigate through the dashboard using the tabs along the bottom of the home screen: Introduction, Overview, Proposals Breakdown, New Awards Breakdown, Amounts Received Breakdown, and Expenditures Breakdown. A user guide is available. The level of data visibility depends on a user’s affiliation with a school or college.
New Human Subjects Research Metrics Dashboard
Research Compliance Services (RCS) is excited to announce that the Human Subjects Research Metrics Dashboard went live June 30. This dashboard provides real-time operational metrics data on active human subject studies, submission and approval volumes, and turnaround times for RCS/Institutional Review Board reviews. The dashboard includes the ability to filter by units and departments as well as by review level and submission type.
The dashboard is available (DuckID required to log in) on the Human Subjects Research Main page.
New Financial Conflict of Interest Training Coming January 1, 2026
PIs and senior/key personnel are required to complete financial conflict of interest training every three years. Currently, the UO uses CITI to deliver the training.
Effective January 1, 2026, PIs and senior/key personnel will instead complete training in MyTrack Learning. Links to the new training will be available on our website and shared in upcoming issues of Frontline.
The new training uses examples relevant to UO research and includes information on federal regulations, UO policy, and UO procedures. The training takes approximately one hour to complete.
Existing training completion in CITI will continue to be valid. Those whose training expires after January 1, 2026, will need to complete the new MyTrack training.
Please email coi@uoregon.edu with any questions about the training requirement.
Advance Index Request Refresh
A reminder that if you need to request a grant index outside the normal SPS process, you can find the appropriate form to submit on the SPS Internal Grant Forms webpage. Please note that there is a separate link for Pre-award Spending requests and other Index Requests (Index Request Form). You can find the following guidance on which form to submit by clicking on the Index Request Form.
- Restricted Index: The award is executed or in-house but there is a pending compliance hold (animal/human subjects protocol, etc.). You will also request a restricted index if you have an approval in principle (AIP) for human subjects research and are awaiting your full IRB protocol approval.
- Expedited Index: SPS has received a fully executed agreement or notice of award and an index is needed within five business days.
- Multiyear Advance Spending: The award is a multiyear project, but the UO is awaiting an amendment or notice of award to authorize the next increment of funding.
- Pre-Award Spending*: The UO is negotiating the contract or sponsor has otherwise indicated a high likelihood of funding. If you have further questions about which form to submit, please reach out to your Post-Award team for guidance.
*Please note that Pre-Award Spending is currently heavily reviewed and granted only in exceptional circumstances due to the uncertain federal funding environment.
Text Guidance for Journal Voucher (JV) and Cost Transfer Justifications
When processing a journal voucher (JV), ensure that no charge is moved to a sponsored project without a clear justification of how it benefits the grant. The invoice text requirements (FOATEXT) should address the nature of the expense being moved on or off the grant, the reason for the transfer, and how the expense is allocable and necessary to the project. Transfers should be completed within 90 days; after this period, a Cost Transfer Justification (CTJ) is required.
Reporting Requirements for Contracts and Gifts from Foreign Source
The UO is required to report incoming contracts with, and gifts received from, foreign persons and entities to the US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation.If your department receives:
- Contracts for incoming funds that are not routed through Sponsored Projects Services or Purchasing and Contracting Services, or
- Gifts from foreign donors that do not come through UO Foundation or Advancement,
please email foreigngiftreports@uoregon.edu to be added to our biannual reporting requests.
Most transactions only require basic information for internal reporting. However, full reporting is required if the UO, as a whole, receives $250,000 or more from the same foreign source or $50,000 or more from a source located in a country of concern.
Your cooperation helps ensure the UO remains compliant with federal requirements.
Required Training Matrix Available
To help the research community stay apprised of required training, OVPRI has released a required training matrix. The matrix lists who must take a specific required training, how frequently, where to access the training, how long it will take to complete the training, and a link to the federal requirement that requires the training. We hope this resource will help PIs, departmental grant administrators (DGAs), and others identify and complete training requirements.
Proposal Development Support
Faculty seeking support for how to prepare competitive proposals (or proposal components) under current federal executive orders (EOs) and agency review processes are encouraged to meet with Research Development Services for support. Please email rds@uoregon.edu to request assistance.
Foreign Travel Security Training Encouraged and May Soon be Mandatory
Foreign Travel Security Training is highly encouraged—and may soon become mandatory—for any principal investigator, co-principal investigator, project director, co-project director, senior/key personnel, or any other position specified in a funding opportunity announcement who travels internationally regardless of whether the travel will be charged to a sponsored award.
PIs, co-PIs, and senior/key personnel with active grant awards who have traveled internationally in the previous three years will receive an email with instructions to complete the training.
Training must be complete prior to travel and is valid for six years.
The UO has released its Foreign Travel Security Training, which is available through MyTrack Learning. The training will take approximately one hour to complete. A Duck ID is required to complete the training. More information about the Foreign Travel Security Training can be found on the export control website.
Export Control Training Encouraged and May Soon be Mandatory
Export Control Training is highly encouraged—and may soon become mandatory—for any principal investigator, co-principal investigator, project director, co-project director, senior/key personnel, or any other position specified in a funding opportunity announcement working with export-controlled technologies.
SPS and the Export Control Office will identify PIs, co-PIs, and senior/key personnel who need to complete the training.
The UO will be using the export control module in CITI to satisfy the training requirement. A Duck ID is required to complete the training. Details about how to access the training can be found on the export control website.
Customizable International Travel Checklist Available
In partnership with the Information Security Office, Safety and Risk Services, Business Affairs Travel Office, and Sponsored Project Services, the Export Control Office has launched a customized international travel checklist. The checklist provides recommended and required steps for safety, security, and compliance while traveling internationally, and the checklist is customized by destination. The checklist can also be found on the Export Control Office’s international travel webpage.
Federal Guidance and Critical Sponsor Updates
PIs, Co-PIs, and Senior/Key Personnel Who Apply to or have Federal Sponsors Must Take Annual Research Security Training
To reduce administrative burden on researchers, OVPRI is adjusting its implementation of research security training requirements, which stem from the CHIPS and Science Act and National Security Presidential Memorandum-33 (NSPM-33).
Effective October 1, 2025, principal investigators (PIs), co-PIs, and senior/key personnel who apply to or have federal sponsors must annually complete research security training. Any researcher who contributes in a substantive, meaningful way to the scientific development or execution of the project is considered senior/key personnel and has the training requirement.
The training must be completed prior to submitting a proposal and annually during the period of a federal award. The research security training is available in MyTrack Learning (DuckID required to log in). It takes approximately one hour to complete. Researchers must advance the training to the very end, until they see the certificate of completion, for MyTrack to recognize they’ve completed the module.
More details can be found on the research security training webpage, and if researchers experience issues, please email exportcontrols@uoregon.edu.
Subawardees and Contractors: The subawardee PI, co-PI, and senior/key personnel need to complete research security training, as does any other subaward researcher who contributes in a substantive, meaningful way to the scientific development or execution of the project. Contractors who contribute in a substantive, meaningful way to the scientific development or execution of the project also need to complete research security training. Some contractors will meet this definition and others won’t.
Subawardees and contractors can complete the one-hour research security training offered by the SECURE Center. They should complete, print, and retain the certificate of completion at the end. Departmental Grant Administrators (DGAs) should request the certificate of completion and upload it into the subaward or contractor section in EPCS. Please note that any UO researcher with a Duck ID must complete the research security training via MyTrack Learning.
Certifications: The National Science Foundation (NSF), the US Department of Energy (DOE), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) require PIs, co-PIs, and senior/key personnel to certify at the time of proposal that they have completed research security training in the previous 12 months and to re-certify annually for the duration of the award. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be re-releasing their requirements for certification soon.
PIs should carefully read all certifications. If you have questions or concerns about a certification, contact your SPS post-award team.
Drones Purchased with or used in Federally Sponsored Research
Effective in December 2025, drones manufactured by companies located in a foreign country of concern are prohibited from being purchased with or used in federally sponsored research.
This prohibition includes drones made by DJI or Autel, among others, and the prohibition stems from national security concerns of foreign adversaries gaining access to sensitive data or infrastructure.
If your research team currently has any drones manufactured by a company in a foreign country of concern or if your research team is unsure about the manufacturer's country of origin, please contact exportcontrols@uoregon.edu for further guidance.
Required Congruence Among Biosketch, Current/Pending Support Document, and Conflict of Interest Disclosure
Federal sponsors have indicated an expectation that documents a researcher submits to a sponsor, like a biographical sketch and a current/pending support document, should match the documents submitted to the institution’s Conflict of Interest Office.
Sponsored Projects Services (SPS) and the Conflict of Interest (COI) Office are working together to help researchers maintain congruence among these documents.
Effective January 2025, researchers may receive correspondence from the COI Office with a request to update their COI disclosure in the Research Administration Portal or to update a biographical sketch or current/pending support document submitted to a sponsor.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
NIH Projects with Foreign Components
NIH has ended the use of foreign subawards to support foreign components. A new application structure for NIH-funded international collaborations (NOT-OD-25-155) was announced September 12, 2025, with a companion forecasted PF5 mechanism NOFO. If you plan to apply for funds to support a foreign collaboration, please review these. Importantly, this new PF5 funding mechanism is not expected to be published until November 2025, so you will have to wait until January 25, 2026, to submit one of these new PF5 applications. Until then, if you submit a regular investigator-initiated R01 application to support a foreign collaborator/subaward, it will be pulled from the system before review and the application will be withdrawn from consideration.
Use of AI in Research Applications
NIH recently released Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications (NOT-OD-25-132), effective September 25, 2025, that prohibits the substantial use of AI in developing proposals and limits each PI to six applications per calendar year, with exceptions for training (T series) and conference (R13) grants. Applications that are substantially developed using AI will not be considered original and may be subject to review under research misconduct or other relevant rules.
As a reminder, NSF released a notice in 2023 (Use of generative artificial intelligence technology in the NSF merit review process) that encourages researchers to indicate in the project description the extent to which, if any, generative AI technology was used and how it was used to develop their proposal.
NIH Will Stop Posting Notices of Funding Opportunities in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts in FY2026
This notice (NOT-OD-25-143) informs the extramural community that, beginning in fiscal year 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will no longer post notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) in the NIH Guide. Grants.gov will serve as NIH’s single official source for grant and cooperative agreement funding opportunities. The NIH Guide will continue to be used for policy and informational notices. All NIH NOFOs (expired and active) will remain searchable on Grants.gov using their Classic search or their new Simpler search.
Update to NIH Policy on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use and Number of Submittals Allowed
NIH announced July 17 that is has updated its Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications Policy, as detailed in Notice NOT-OD-25-132, which will become effective for applications submitted September 25, 2025, and beyond. The policy states that NIH will not consider applications that are either substantially developed by AI, or contain sections substantially developed by AI, to be original ideas of applicants. If the detection of AI is identified post award, NIH may refer the matter to the Office of Research Integrity to determine whether there is research misconduct while simultaneously taking enforcement actions including but not limited to disallowing costs, withholding future awards, wholly or in part suspending the grant, and possible termination.
NIH will only accept six new, renewal, resubmission, or revision applications from an individual principal investigator/program director or multiple principal investigator for all council rounds in a calendar year. This policy applies to all activity codes except T activity codes and R13 Conference Grant Applications.
Update to NIH Public Access Policy
As noted in a prior message out to the research community, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, as detailed in Notice NOT-OD-25-047, will become effective on July 1, 2025. This represents an accelerated timeline from the prior December 31, 2025, deadline. This new policy removes the embargo period so that researchers, students, and members of the public have rapid access to these findings. NIH has also issued supplemental guidance on government use license and rights and publication costs. Please refer to OVPRI's policy webpage for more information.
National Science Foundation (NSF)
All PIs and Senior/Key Personnel Accepting Sponsored Awards Must Take Research Security Training Annually
The National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have all recently updated their research security requirements.
As a result, effective October 1, 2025 (and effective August 7, 2025, for USDA researchers), ALL principal investigators (PIs) and senior/key personnel, regardless of sponsor, must annually complete Research Security Training.
The training must be completed prior to submitting a proposal and must be completed annually thereafter. The Research Security Training is available in MyTrack Learning (DuckID required to log in). It takes approximately one hour to complete. More details can be found on the research security training webpage.
NSF, NIH, DOE, and USDA will require PIs and senior/key personnel to certify they completed research security training in the previous 12 months and to re-certify annually for the duration of the award.
This new certification for NSF and USDA researchers is in addition to the annual certification in research.gov for PIs and co-PIs to indicate they are not party to a malign foreign talent recruitment program.
PIs should carefully read all certifications. If you have questions or concerns, contact your SPS post-award team.
New NSF Certification
Beginning June 7, 2025, the National Science Foundation (NSF) requires all PIs and co-PIs to annually certify in research.gov that they are not party to a malign foreign talent recruitment program (MFTRP).
NSF is expected to expand the annual certification to all senior/key personnel on NSF-funded projects at a future date.
PIs should carefully read the certification and ensure that the language in the attestation applies only to MFTRPs. If they have questions or concerns, they should contact their SPS post-award team.
Those who are party to a MFTRP are ineligible to serve as PI on an NSF-funded project.
What you need to know about completing the required MFTRP certification in Research.gov:
There is no organizational certification requirement; the certification requirement is for PIs and co-PIs. Impacted PIs and co-PIs will be prompted to complete the MFTRP certification after signing into Research.gov using the Sign In link at the top of the website.
PIs and co-PIs with more than one active award made on or after May 20, 2024, are only required to certify once annually. Once completed, PIs and co-PIs can view their MFTRP certification response under the Academic/Professional Information section of their profile.NSF is working to expand the MFTRP annual certification requirement for all senior/key personnel roles at a future date. Additionally, NSF is working to provide organizations with access to the annual certifications.
For more information, please visit OVPRI’s Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Programs webpage.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
2024 updates to the Final Rule
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) issued the 2024 Final Rule to update the 2005 Public Health Service (PHS) Policies on Research Misconduct. The 2024 updates to the Final Rule establish requirements for addressing research misconduct; the application date for the final rule is January 1, 2026. UO policy changes to comply with the new final rule will be communicated to the research community once available. For more information, see the ORI announcement or contact Sheryl Johnson, the UO’s research integrity officer at sherylj@uoregon.edu.
Department of Energy (DOE)
Department of Energy Researchers Must Take Research Security Training
Effective May 1, 2025, Research Security Training will be required for principal investigators (PIs), co-principal investigators, project directors, co-project directors, senior/key personnel, or any other position specified in a funding opportunity announcement who submit proposals to the US Department of Energy.
The training must be completed prior to submitting a proposal and must be completed annually thereafter. The Research Security Training is available in MyTrack Learning. It takes approximately 1.5 hours to complete and requires a DuckID to log in. More details can be found on the export controls webpage.
Department of Defense (DOD)
Enhanced Cybersecurity Requirements for DOD Grants
The Department of Defense (DOD) will implement enhanced cybersecurity requirements for all DOD research awards involving sensitive, unclassified information proposed after November 10, 2025. If you are a researcher, Sponsored Projects Administrator, or DGA, and you anticipate working on a new DOD-funded award, please be aware of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC).
The CMMC has three tiers, Levels 1, 2, and 3. As described in the proposed rule, “Under the CMMC program, defense contractors and subcontractors will be required to implement certain cybersecurity protection requirements tied to a designated CMMC level and either perform a self-assessment or obtain an independent assessment from either a third-party or DOD as a condition of a DOD contract award.
Research Integrity is prepared to help facilitate researcher compliance with CMMC 1.0 and will work with you to ensure that appropriate associated costs are included in your proposal. If you pursue an award that requires compliance with CMMC 2.0, please be in touch as early as possible, as those heightened cybersecurity standards require extensive planning and investment, and the time we have to prepare may impact whether it is possible to pursue the award.
The scope of applicable exceptions, appropriate allocation of cost burdens, and the impact on existing awards are just a few of several questions that remain to be answered. We will take compliance seriously; failure to comply with the cybersecurity standards can result in False Claims Act liability. We will continue to monitor implementation and associated guidance.
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