Hardship Authorization Requests

Under the hardship process, a sponsored project/grant can be established prior to actual receipt of the final award document. This process permits work to begin in situations where: 1) there is a delay in the award process, 2) there is reasonable certainty that the award will be forthcoming, and 3) necessary expenditures will be allowable under the anticipated award terms (typically the effective date).

Note: Some awards covered by the terms of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) permit expenditures prior to the actual effective date of the award, referred to as "preaward costs." To request approval of preaward costs NOT associated with the establishment of a new project/grant, please use the FDP Post Award Change Approval Request Form (12K MicroSoft Word v6 | name: fdp.doc)

To initiate the Hardship process, a Hardship Authorization Request Form must be submitted to DRDA. (Downloadable versions are available below or on the Forms page.) The form asks for:

Brief description of the need.
Evidence of why you think an award is forthcoming.
Period of hardship (start and end dates) -- typically not longer than three months.
Itemized budget (by general category), including indirect costs, for the time period. All items must be otherwise allowable in accordance with the anticipated terms of the award. Please be specific if funds are requested for equipment or subcontractors.
Signatures:
- Project Director (or designate)
- Department/Unit
  (to acknowledge there may be a risk that the formal award might not be issued to cover the expenses incurred).
- DRDA Project Representative

Upon receipt of the hardship request, Principal Investigators must confirm that the local compliance requirements are met before DRDA will establish the project/grant and short code. Specially, before DRDA will process the request:

human, animal, and select agent use approvals obtained
restrictions on openness resolved
conflicts of interest resolved
all required PEERRS training completed

Contact the appropriate DRDA Project Representative (Contact Information) as you initiate this process.

Please note that although DRDA will continue to do their best to ensure that hardship accounts are set-up judiciously, it is ultimately the signing department that is financially responsible if for some reason the award is not received or received later than ninety days in the case of preaward costs.

Hardship Authorization Request Form

PDF Version file size & type:32K Adobe Acrobat 3.0 | name:HARF.pdf

Microsoft Word Version file size & type:64K MicroSoft Word | name:HARF.doc

Last reviewed: 10/25/2006