Frequently Asked Questions
About the FDP
What is the FDP?
The Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) is an association of federal agencies, academic research institutions, and independent research organizations who work together to streamline the administration of federally sponsored research. The FDP started in 1986 as an experiment with five federal agencies to test and evaluate a grant system using a standardized set of terms and conditions across all participating agencies. Since that initial experiment, the FDP has expanded to more than 200 grantee institutions.
Supported and convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies), the FDP is a unique forum whereby university research administrators and technical staff, faculty who serve as principal investigators on federally funded awards and research leaders, and federal agency grant managers and leadership collaborate to reduce the administrative burden associated with grants and move research forward. FDP members identify, test, and implement more effective ways of managing federal research awards while maintaining high standards of stewardship of federal dollars and accountability for results and findings.
Why Federal Agencies are Essential
Why Faculty Researchers are Essential
Why Researcher Administrators are Essential
What Makes the FDP Unique?
Through our collaborative work with federal agencies and our member institutions, we conduct demonstrations, which include surveys, pilots, and tools, with the goal of reducing the administrative burden related to federally sponsored research. We provide the necessary facts and data to substantiate proposed changes in policies or procedures that will provide faculty with more time to conduct research. Unlike advocacy associations, we do not communicate viewpoints or make recommendations to influence policy change.
The Work of the FDP Supports:
- University faculty by ensuring researchers can focus their efforts on conducting groundbreaking research and less time on administrative tasks.
- Federal agencies by providing them access to a diverse pool of research institutions who offer feedback on new policies, procedures, and needs, and providing a testbed for conducting pilots for new systems, processes, or policies.
- Research administrators by collaborating to identify opportunities to streamline processes, author effective templates and tools, and create solutions to shared challenges.
Why is the FDP a Partnership?
The FDP facilitates collaboration between federal agencies, faculty, research administrators, and technical representatives from its membership. These partnerships benefit the nation’s entire research community, members and non-members alike.
- The FDP provides a forum for faculty representatives to share information about the research administrative burdens they face, which takes time away from their research.
- Federal agencies can benefit from “real time” feedback on demonstrations and current initiatives and the FDP can coalesce a critical group to convene immediately over a particular issue.
- The FDP collaborates with research administrators to focus on improvement by continuous review of processes, procedures and policies.
What are the FDP’s Accomplishments?
Some of the FDP’s accomplishments include:
- Conducting three Faculty Workload Surveys in 2005, 2012, and 2018. The data from these surveys have been cited in various publications, including a blog from the White House.1
- Partnering with federal agencies to explore ways to streamline grant management, including testing the automatic carryover of unexpended funds from one budget period to the next, allowing 90-day pre-award spending, and providing institutions the ability to grant one time no- cost extensions. These “expanded authorities” still exist today for federal grantees.
- Developing the Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae (SciENcv) to create a system that eliminates the burden associated with creating multiple versions of biosketches. The FDP partnered on the project with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health. SciENcv has since expanded to accommodate other opportunities to increase efficiency including the addition of other federal sponsor requirements and the creation of Current & Pending Support forms.
- Expediting the review and negotiation of federal subawards through the FDP Subaward templates, which are widely used by federal grantees and by both member and non-member institutions. This removes the need for grantees to create subawards from scratch and provides a standard standard set of terms and conditions to expedite subaward negotiations.
- Creating the FDP Expanded Clearinghouse which enables pass-through entities to easily access key information of member institutions, streamlining processes for subaward issuance and subrecipient monitoring, and eliminating the need to exchange extra forms. It has since expanded to include non-members, and is widely used by FDP members and non- members today.
- Increasing the membership and participation of Emerging Research Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions, broadening the perspective of the impact of administrative burdens to a wider array of federal award recipients.
1 Dollars Delivering Results: Biden-Harris Administration Publishes Proposed Updates to the Uniform Grants Guidance to Improve Impact of Federal Grants and Other Financial Assistance | OMB. (2023, September 22). The White House.
How do I get Involved?
How can faculty get more involved?
- Find out if your institution is an FDP Member Institution. Reach out to your FDP Faculty or Administrative representative to find out about future meetings and listening sessions, and current demonstrations.
- Find out about FDP volunteer opportunities.
- Sign up for the FDP listservs.
How can federal partners provide input?
- Federal agencies can reach out to the FDP at fdp@nas.edu to discuss future collaborations.
- Federal agencies can use the FDP as a forum, providing opportunities for listening sessions with our diverse membership. Listening sessions allow for the exchange of ideas throughout the year and provide a safe space for questions, preliminary considerations, and open discussion. They can be particularly helpful for federal agencies to obtain feedback prior to implementing new policies, guidance, procedures, or systems.
- Federal agencies can actively engage with the FDP by presenting during one of our three tri-annual meetings.
- Federal agency members can use the FDP as the primary stakeholder group for tests and demonstrations of reengineered processes and systems for the support of research, and actively participate in demonstrations.
How can FDP members get more involved?
- The work of the FDP is performed by individuals from FDP Member Institutions and Federal Agency partners. The FDP also provides participants opportunities for for professional development and networking through its many volunteer committees and working groups. The FDP is a unique organization that provides its members a “seat at the table” where important solutions are being discussed, piloted, and implemented.
- Volunteer opportunities are available to FDP members and can be accessed on our website at https://thefdp.org/volunteer/.
- FDP members appoint a Faculty Representative, an Administrative Representative, and an optional Information Technology Representative familiar with the systems that support research administration activities. Participation by individuals who specialize in compliance, accounting, and other research administration/ compliance disciplines is also encouraged.
How can I Join the FDP?
The FDP is organized by phases for a period of six years. Prior to the end of each phase, the FDP begins a membership drive, inviting applications for membership for new institutions. Membership in the FDP, once granted, is for the entire length of each FDP phase. Membership is only open to institutions, not individuals.
The FDP is currently in Phase VII, which began on January 1, 2021, and runs through December 31, 2027. Information regarding membership applications and renewals for Phase VIII will be released in 2027.
How can I Get Involved as a Non-Member?
Non-members can attend the FDP tri-annual meetings; use the FDP’s longstanding resources, such as the FDP Subaward templates and Data Transfer and Use Agreements (DTUAs); and sign up for the FDP Friends listserv.