Important Guidance Regarding DOE Communications on F&A Rate Policy

Dear colleagues,

We want to alert you to reports from peer institutions that some faculty have received direct
communications from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on or around April 16, asking them
to accept a 15% reduced indirect (F&A) cost rate or risk termination of their grant funding.

If you have received, or do receive, such a message, please do not respond or accept any
terms. Instead, forward the message immediately to Northwestern’s Sponsored Research team
and notify your school’s research dean. All communications related to grant terms must be
handled centrally through Sponsored Research.

Please remember that a temporary restraining order (TRO) is currently in effect, temporarily
blocking implementation of DOE’s new 15% indirect cost rate cap policy. On Tuesday, a
coalition of research universities and national advocacy organizations filed a legal challenge to
the DOE’s policy. A U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts subsequently issued the TRO,
temporarily prohibiting the DOE from implementing the new policy or terminating grants based
on it while the case proceeds. For more details, please refer to our recent update.

We encourage you to regularly check the Office for Research’s federal transition website for
ongoing updates.

Thank you for your continued partnership and attention to this important matter.

Eric J. Perreault
Vice President for Research