Award Modifications and Prior Approval Requests

During the course of the project it may be necessary to make modifications to an award.  All requests to modify a sponsored project must be approved by OSP prior to submission to the Sponsor.  Principal Investigator's should prepare a letter of request and route the request in GeauxGrants to OSP for review and approval.  Upon approval, OSP will return to PI for transmittal to Sponsor or submit directly to Sponsor, if applicable.

Modification types include, but not limited to:

  • Change of Investigator
  • Change in Scope/PI Effort
  • No-Cost Extension
  • Revised Budget
  • Termination of an Award
  • Transfer of an Award
  • Other

Federal agencies have been authorized by the Office of Management and Budget to delegate "Expanded Authorities" to Universities to approve certain rebudgeting and other actions on grants and cooperative agreements, but not on contracts.  Agencies can authorize Universities to make the following changes under Expanded Authorities internally using the Institutional Prior Approval System (unless prohibited in the award document):

  • Additional Compensation - compensation above base pay for work in excess of the regular appointment of the employee.
  • Alterations/Renovations - non construction funds up to $25,000
  • General Purpose Equipment Acquisition - an item with a unit cost of $5,000 or more when its use is primarily for technical activities associated with the project
  • No-Cost Extension - first extension up to 12 months
  • Pre-Award Costs - within 90 days prior to the effective date of the award
  • Special Purpose Equipment Acquisition - an item with a unit cost of $5,000 or more which is used only for research, medical, scientific, and other technical activities.
  • Domestic Subawards not originally included or subawards modified from original proposal

View the prior approval matrix and the modification types and approvals needed broken down by federal agency.

Modifications that can be approved internally should be routed to OSP by routing the request in GeauxGrants.  Upon review and approval, OSP will notify the awarding agency when required and forward request to Sponsored Program Accounting (SPA).

Instructions on how to create and route Modification/Prior Approval Requests can be found on the Sponsored Projects GeauxGrants Helpdesk.

Further information regarding post award modifications is available in the LSU Post Award Administration User's Manual.