Department of Health and Human Services 
OFFICE OF 
INSPECTOR GENERAL 
NIH G M : 
RANTS  ANAGEMENT
L C
ATE  LOSEOUTS 
Inspector General 
May 2004 
OEI-01-03-00021  Office of Inspector General

http://oig.hhs.gov 
The mission of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), as mandated by Public Law 95-452, 
as amended, is to protect the integrity of the Department of Health and Human Services 
(HHS) programs, as well as the health and welfare of beneficiaries served by those 
programs. This statutory mission is carried out through a nationwide network of audits, 
investigations, and inspections conducted by the following operating components: 
Office of Audit Services 
The OIG's Office of Audit Services (OAS) provides all auditing services for HHS, either by 
conducting audits with its own audit resources or by overseeing audit work done by others. 
Audits examine the performance of HHS programs and/or its grantees and contractors 
in carrying out their respective responsibilities and are intended to provide independent 
assessments of HHS programs and operations in order to reduce waste, abuse, and 
mismanagement and to promote economy and efficiency throughout the department. 
Office of Evaluation and Inspections 
The OIG's Office of Evaluation and Inspections (OEI) conducts short-term management 
and program evaluations (called inspections) that focus on issues of concern to the 
department, the Congress, and the public. The findings and recommendations contained 
in the inspections reports generate rapid, accurate, and up-to-date information on the 
efficiency, vulnerability, and effectiveness of departmental programs. 
Office of Investigations 
The OIG's Office of Investigations (OI) conducts criminal, civil, and administrative 
investigations of allegations of wrongdoing in HHS programs or to HHS beneficiaries 
and of unjust enrichment by providers. The investigative efforts of OI lead to criminal 
convictions, administrative sanctions, or civil monetary penalties. The OI also oversees 
state Medicaid fraud control units, which investigate and prosecute fraud and patient 
abuse in the Medicaid program. 
Office of Counsel to the Inspector General 
The Office of Counsel to the Inspector General (OCIG) provides general legal services to 
OIG, rendering advice and opinions on HHS programs and operations and providing all 
legal support in OIG's internal operations. The OCIG imposes program exclusions and 
civil monetary penalties on health care providers and litigates those actions within the 
department. The OCIG also represents OIG in the global settlement of cases arising 
under the Civil False Claims Act, develops and monitors corporate integrity agreements, 
develops model compliance plans, renders advisory opinions on OIG sanctions to the 
health care community, and issues fraud alerts and other industry guidance.    A B S T R A C T

Grants management is a priority area for both the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services and the Office of Inspector General. 
In fiscal year 2002, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 
awarded $19 billion to support 49,000 extramural grants to 
researchers affiliated with more than 2,800 universities, 
hospitals, and other research facilities. When a grant is 
terminated, Federal regulations require the grantee to submit, 
within 90 days, a final financial status report, scientific progress 
report, and invention statement. This grant closeout process is 
critical because it is the final point of accountability for the 
grantee. NIH staff must review and approve these documents in 
order to close out the grant. We have defined, in consultation 
with NIH, an on-time closeout as one that occurs within 150 
days after the grant has been terminated. In August 2002, NIH 
implemented a new computer system to monitor closeouts, 
referred to as the NIH closeout module. 
Based on our analysis of data in the NIH closeout module, we 
found that 88 percent (8,941) of all grants in the module were 
closed out late. The primary cause of late closeouts is grantees 
submitting closeout documents late. Tracking down these late 
closeout documents requires significant time and effort for NIH 
staff. NIH experiences several challenges in taking corrective 
actions against grantees for submitting late closeout documents. 
While the closeout module is a promising tool to help NIH 
monitor closeouts, it has some limitations. To address late 
closeouts we recommend that NIH (1) develop an automated 
reminder system to alert grantees about upcoming due dates for 
closeout documents, (2) facilitate the electronic submission of all 
closeout documents, (3) enhance the closeout modules 
capabilities, and (4) address late closeouts more systematically 
by focusing on grantee institutions. NIH concurred with our 
recommendations. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  i    E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y

OBJECTIVE 
To determine the extent to which the National Institutes of Health 
closes out grants on time. 
BACKGROUND 
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest Federal funder 
of health research and development. In fiscal year 2002, NIH 
awarded $19 billion to support 49,000 extramural grants to 
researchers affiliated with more than 2,800 universities, hospitals, 
and other research facilities. Extramural grants fund scientists and 
organizations outside the agency. NIH awards grants through 24 
distinct institutes and centers (institutes) that are responsible for the 
day-to-day management and oversight of their grants. 
Grants management is a priority area for both the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services and the Office of Inspector General. 
Given that grant closeouts are the final point of accountability for the 
grantee, their timeliness is an important aspect of grants 
management at NIH. When a grant is terminated, Federal 
regulations require the grantee to submit, within 90 days, a final 
financial status report, scientific progress report, and invention 
statement (45 CFR  74.70-73). The financial status report confirms 
the final accounting of grant funds. At this time, any unobligated 
funds are released. The progress report documents the course and 
results of the research. Finally, the invention statement confirms if 
any inventions were developed under the grant. 
We have defined an on-time closeout, in consultation with NIH, as one 
that occurs within 150 days of the end of the project period.  We have 
allowed 60 calendar days for NIH staff to review and approve the 
closeout documents submitted by grantees, in addition to the 90 days 
allowed by Federal regulations for grantees to submit their closeout 
documents. 
In August 2002, NIH implemented a new computer system to monitor 
closeouts, referred to as the NIH closeout module. The purpose of the 
closeout module is to help NIH staff closeout grants on time and, 
when necessary, follow up with grantees to obtain late documents. 
This new module provides an opportunity to document late closeouts 
and their causes. At the time of our review, the module was in use for 
only about 8 months, and institutes used it to varying extents. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  ii  E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y  
Therefore, we cannot make any conclusions about the entire 
population of closeouts based on that data. This limitation applies to 
all data analysis based on the closeout module. 
This inspection is primarily based on an analysis of all data in the 
NIH closeout module, a survey of grantee institutions, and interviews 
with NIH staff. 
This report is one of two that resulted from our inquiry. Our 
companion report, NIH Grants Management: Late Awards (OEI-01-
03-00020), applies a similar methodology to determine the extent to 
which NIH awards noncompeting continuation grants on time. 
FINDINGS 
Eighty-eight percent of all grants in the NIH closeout module were 
closed out late. As of April 2003, the NIH closeout module contained 
10,122 grants, of which 8,941 were closed out late. This includes 
3,118 grants that were closed out after 150 days, and 5,823 grants 
that were still pending after 150 days passed. Fifty grantee 
institutions accounted for almost half of these late closeouts. 
Research project grants, which are one of 10 funding categories, 
accounted for 79 percent of these late closeouts. Late closeouts 
appeared to be common across all funding mechanisms, years, and 
institutes. 
Grantees submitting closeout documents late is the primary 
cause for late closeouts. Based on data in the closeout module, 
grantees submitted final financial status reports late for 49 percent of 
the grants. Grantees submitted final progress reports late for 37 
percent of the grants. And grantees submitted at least 31 percent of 
final invention statements late. NIH does not remind grantees about 
upcoming due dates for closeout documents as the due date 
approaches. However, NIH does remind grantees about their 
closeouts at the time they receive the final year of funding. 
Tracking down missing closeout documents requires significant 
time and effort for institute staff. As late closeouts accumulate, 
institute staff reported to us that they find it difficult to address the 
backlog. Closeouts that are several years old are especially difficult, 
because principal investigators (the scientists who lead the research) 
may have moved on to other institutions and records may not be 
readily available. In order to obtain closeout documents, staff must 
follow up, often multiple times, with grantees. To address this 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  iii  E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y  
workload, several institutes have hired staff and/or contractors that 
are dedicated solely to addressing closeouts. 
NIH experiences challenges in taking corrective actions against 
grantees for submitting closeout documents late.  Institute staff 
indicated that they rarely resort to withholding future funding from 
an institution due to late closeouts, because it is too severe a penalty 
and slows down future research. And in many cases, the option of 
withholding future funding is not possible, as the principal 
investigator is no longer conducting NIH research. Twelve percent of 
grantee institutions indicated that NIH had withheld future funding 
from their institution due to late submission of closeout documents. 
And yet, 85 percent of grantee institutions indicated on our survey 
that they had submitted at least one set of closeout documents late in 
the past 3 years. 
While the closeout module is promising, it has some limitations. 
The current closeout module does not automatically include all grants 
eligible for closeout. Institute staff manually enter grants ready for 
closeout into the module; therefore, completeness is dependent on the 
staff updating the system. (Manual entry is necessary in order to 
verify the grant is ready for closeout.) Even for those institutes that 
have entered information, it is uncertain how diligent they are at 
keeping the information up to date. Many records contain missing 
information, which raises questions about whether the information 
was not submitted by the grantee or whether the institute failed to 
enter the information in the module. 
RECOMMENDATIONS 
NIH is taking several important steps toward addressing late 
closeouts, especially in developing the closeout module and planning 
to manage the closeout function from a central office. We encourage 
NIH to continue these efforts. We also recommend NIH: 
o	 Develop an automated reminder system for grantees to alert 
them of upcoming closeouts 
o	 Facilitate the electronic submission of all closeout 
documents 
o	 Enhance the closeout modules capabilities by ensuring that 
all the information is entered into the module 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  iv  E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y  
o	 Address late closeouts more systematically by focusing on 
grantee institutions 
Agency Comments 
NIH reveiwed a draft of this report and concurred with our 
recommendations. In its comments, NIH indicated additional steps that 
it is planning to address these issues. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  v    T A B L E   O F   C O N T E N T S

A B S T R A C T  .................................................................  i

E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y  ................................................  ii

I N T R O D U C T I O N  .........................................................  1

F I N D I N G S  .................................................................  7

Eighty-eight percent of grants were closed out late ................. 7

Grantees submit late closeout documents .......................... 11

Tracking down missing closeout documents........................ 13

NIH experiences challenges in taking actions...................... 14

Limitations of the closeout module .................................  15

R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S  ................................................. 16

A P P E N D I C E S  ............................................................ 20

Methodology......................................................... 20

Confidence intervals ................................................ 25

Late closeouts by NIH institute .................................... 26

Agency comments ................................................... 27

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S  ................................................. 31

E N D   N O T E S  .............................................................. 32
   I N T R O D U C T I O N

OBJECTIVE 
To determine the extent to which the National Institutes of Health 
closes out grants on time. 
BACKGROUND 
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest Federal funder 
of health research and development. NIH grants support basic and 
clinical research, research centers, scientific training and fellowships, 
and construction projects. 
Recent increases in appropriations have allowed NIH to significantly 
increase its grant-making capacity over the past 5 years. In fiscal 
year (FY) 2003, NIH received $27 billion in total funding, compared to 
$13.6 billion in FY 1998. The Presidents proposed budget for FY 
2004 requests $28 billion for NIH. 
About 80 to 85 percent of NIHs budget supports extramural grants. 
Extramural grants fund scientists and organizations outside the agency. 
In FY 2002, NIHs total budget was $23.2 billion, of which NIH awarded 
$19 billion in extramural grants. NIH awarded $16.8 billion to support 
43,520 extramural research grants; the remaining $2.2 billion went to 
support 6,196 other extramural grants, such as training and fellowship 
grants. Combined, these funds supported about 49,700 extramural 
grants to researchers affiliated with more than 2,800 universities, 
hospitals, and other research facilities. 
Grants Administration 
Grants management and oversight are critical to ensure that Federal 
funds are used properly. Grants management is a priority area for 
both the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Office of 
Inspector General, and is among the top management challenges 
identified by the Office of Inspector General for FY 2003.1  As the 
largest funder of health research, NIH must have appropriate policies 
and procedures in place to effectively and efficiently manage its 
grants. The recent increases in NIH funding make it particularly 
important to ensure that NIH has the proper infrastructure to handle 
its increased grant workload. 
The general requirements for grants management at NIH are set 
forth by the Office of Management and Budget and codified in 
regulation by the Department of Health and Human Services.2 These 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  1  II NN TT RR OO DD UU CC TT II OO NN  
regulations establish requirements for the financial and 
administrative management of each award. 
Additional requirements are provided in the NIH Guide for Grants 
and Contracts, the NIH Grants Policy Statement, and the NIH 
Manual. The NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts is the official 
publication of NIH policies, procedures, and availability of funds. The 
NIH Grants Policy Statement provides a general overview of the 
grant application and review process, including terms and conditions 
for NIH grant awards. (NIH can establish other terms for particular 
institutions.) It emphasizes the importance of good grants 
management by stating, NIH, as a Federal grantor agency, is 
responsible to Congress and the U.S. taxpayer for carrying out its 
mission in a manner that not only facilitates research but also does so 
cost effectively and in compliance with applicable rules and 
regulations.3 The NIH Manual contains NIH policies regarding 
internal operations, including requirements for the awarding and 
oversight of extramural grants. 
NIHs Office of Extramural Research is central to the development 
and maintenance of agency policies regarding extramural grants. It 
also develops program guidelines and information systems related to 
extramural research grants administration. 
NIH awards grants through 24 distinct institutes and centers 
(hereafter referred to as institutes) that are responsible for the day-to-
day management and oversight of their grants.4 Each institute has 
its own grants management office to handle administrative functions 
and to conduct ongoing monitoring of its grants. Grants management 
specialists in these offices are primarily responsible for reviewing 
applications for administrative content and compliance with key laws 
and regulations, reviewing all correspondence and reports from 
grantees, and providing technical assistance to grantees as needed 
throughout the grant process. A chief grants management officer 
oversees the grant specialists. Each institute also has its own 
program office. Program officers establish scientific program goals 
and objectives, which serve as a guide for funding decisions, and 
monitor scientific issues that arise throughout the course of the grant. 
Typically, NIH awards grants with project periods that span several 
years. The project period is the total time for which NIH agrees to 
support the project. NIH divides a multi-year project period into 
budget periods, usually 12-month increments. The budget period may 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  2  I N T R O D U C T I O N  
start at any point during the year. Grants management staff assign 
project periods and budget periods for each grant. 
Grant Closeouts 
Grant closeouts are the final point of accountability for the grantee. 
Failure to close out grants can have negative consequences for NIH as 
well as the grantees. For NIH staff, the consequence of late closeouts 
is that they need to spend significant time and effort following up 
with grantees to obtain late closeout documents. As for the grantees, 
the consequence of late closeouts is that future funding could be in 
jeopardy if NIH chooses to take enforcement actions. 
The closeout process occurs when the grant project period ends or 
when a grant transfers to another institution. At such time, Federal 
regulations require grantees to submit a closeout packet that consists 
of a final financial status report, scientific progress report, and 
invention statement. The financial status report confirms the final 
accounting of grant funds. At this time, any unobligated funds are 
released. The progress report documents the course and results of the 
research. Finally, the invention statement confirms if any inventions 
were developed under the grant. 
Federal regulations require grantees to submit a closeout packet no 
later than 90 calendar days following the termination of a grant.5 
After 150 days, the NIH Manual states that sanctions may be 
imposed.6 
The principal investigator, the scientist who is responsible for the 
direction and conduct of the research, and the grantee institution, the 
organization where the principal investigator is affiliated, are both 
responsible for submitting closeout documents. Typically, the 
principal investigator completes and submits the progress report and 
the invention statement. The grantee institutions accounting 
department typically submits the financial status report. 
Once the institute receives the closeout documents, the appropriate 
institute staff review and approve the documents. The program 
officer is responsible for reviewing and approving the final scientific 
progress report and the grants management specialist ensures that 
all documents are complete. 
We have defined, in consultation with NIH, an on-time closeout as one 
that occurs within 150 days of the end of the project period.  We have 
allowed 60 calendar days for NIH staff to review and approve the 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  3  I N T R O D U C T I O N  
documents submitted by the grantees, in addition to the 90 days 
allowed by Federal regulations for grantees to submit their closeout 
documents. 
Prior Work 
Prior work by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and others has 
found late closeouts to be a problem for NIH. The OIG reported in its 
Independent Audit Report for FY 2002 that NIH had about 15,283 
grants that were eligible for closeout but had not been closed as of 
September 30, 2002.7 A 1998 General Accounting Office report found 
that 85 percent (628 of 736) of grants at one institute were delinquent 
in providing the complete closeout packages. 8 Data from the National 
Cancer Institute, which has its own system to monitor closeouts, show 
that in FY 2000 and FY 2001 nearly 100 percent of grantees did not 
submit required documentation for closeouts within 90 days.9 
NIH Closeout Module 
In August 2002, NIH implemented a new computer program to 
monitor closeouts, referred to as the NIH closeout module. The 
purpose of the closeout module is to help NIH staff closeout grants on 
time and, when necessary, follow up with grantees to obtain late 
documents. This new module provides an opportunity to document 
late closeouts and their causes. The module pulls information from 
the Information for Management, Planning, Analysis and 
Coordination (IMPAC II) database and, based on this information, 
institutes can enter grants into the module that are ready for 
closeout. Once a grant is in the module, the institute staff can readily 
determine which closeout documents are missing and automatically 
generate emails to the grantee institution requesting the missing 
information. 
METHODOLOGY 
We based our analysis of late closeouts on five sources of data. For a 
detailed description of our methodology and confidence intervals, see 
Appendices A and B. 
First, we analyzed all 10,130 grants in NIHs closeout module as of 
April 2003. The closeout module is a computer system implemented 
in August 2002 that allows the institutes to monitor grants that are 
ready for closeout. We eliminated 8 grants from our analysis because 
of missing information or apparent data entry errors. The revised 
dataset had a total of 10,122 records. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  4  I N T R O D U C T I O N  
Second, we obtained computer printouts from the closeout module for 
a stratified sample of 300 grants that were closed out late (at least 
150 days after the project end date) or were still open at least 150 
days after the project end date. We limited our population to three of 
the largest institutes: the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the 
National Institute of General Medical Sciences. We excluded the 
largest institute, the National Cancer Institute, because it already 
has an active monitoring system in place to identify late closeouts and 
their causes. We stratified our sample by institute. We randomly 
selected 100 late closeouts from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood 
Institute (N=522), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious 
Diseases (N=784), and the National Institute of General Medical 
Sciences (N=254). 
Third, we requested the specific operating procedures related to 
closeouts for all 24 institutes with grant-making authority. 
Fourth, we selected a simple random sample of 135 grantee 
institutions from the 375 locations that received 10 or more research 
grants from NIH in FY 2002. We received 111 replies to our survey, 
for a response rate of 82 percent. 
Finally, we interviewed grants management staff at the National 
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Allergy 
and Infectious Diseases; and the National Institute of General 
Medical Sciences, as well as staff in the Office of Extramural 
Research. 
Data Limitations 
In order for a grant to be captured in the closeout module, institute 
staff must manually enter the grant into the module. Because the 
module depends on someone to enter the grants, it is unlikely that the 
module contains all grants ready for closeout. This is further 
complicated by the fact that at the time of our review, the module was 
in use for only about 8 months, and institutes used it to varying 
extents. For example, some institutes have entered closeouts from 
the past several years, whereas other institutes have only entered the 
most recent closeouts. Therefore, we cannot make any conclusions 
about the entire population of closeouts based on that data. This 
limitation applies to all data analysis based on the closeout module. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  5  II NN TT RR OO DD UU CC TT II OO NN  
Standards

We conducted this inspection in accordance with the Quality 

Standards for Inspections issued by the Presidents Council on 

Integrity and Efficiency.

A COMPANION REPORT 
This report is one of two that resulted from our inquiry. Our companion 
report, NIH Grants Management: Late Awards (OEI-01-03-00020), 
applies a similar methodology to determine the extent to which NIH 
awards noncompeting continuation (type 5) grants on time. A late 
noncompeting continuation award results in a situation in which NIH 
has not issued funding for the next budget period until after the end of 
the previous budget. This causes a gap in funding. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  6    F I N D I N G S

As of April 2003, the NIH closeout 
Eighty-eight percent of all the awards in the NIH  module contained 10,122 closeouts, 
closeout module were closed out late.  of which 8,941 were closed out late. 
This includes 3,118 grants that 
were closed out after 150 days and 5,823 grants that were still pending, 
but 150 days had already passed. 
The late closeouts in the module were at least 2 years late.  Three-
quarters of the late closeouts were at least 1 year late. Almost half were 
3 years or more late. (See Table 1.) These are conservative estimates 
because 65 percent of the late closeouts remain open, thus, they become 
even later over time. 
Table 1. Closeouts By Extent of Lateness 
Number of  Percent of All 
Extent of Lateness  Late  Late 
Closeouts  Closeouts* 
151 days to < 1 year  2,374  27% 
1 year to < 2 years  1,087  12% 
2 years to < 3 years  1,483  17% 
3 years to < 4 years  1,421  16% 
4 years to < 5 years  1,183  13% 
5 years and above  1,393  16% 
Overall Total  8,941  100% 
* Numbers do not equal a 100% due to rounding. 
Source: OIG analysis of data from NIH's Closeout Module, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  7  F I N D I N G S  
Three percent of the grantee institutions in the module accounted for 
45 percent of all the late closeouts in the module.  There were 1,721 
grantee institutions in the module, yet 50 of these grantee institutions 
represent 4,018 (45 percent) of late closeouts in the module. These 50 
grantee institutions also represent 45 percent of all grants in the 
closeout module. The proportion of late closeouts for those 50 grantee 
institutions ranged from 70 to 96 percent. Thirteen of those 50 
grantee institutions had at least 100 late closeouts. Given that some 
grantee institutions are very large and receive thousands of grants 
from NIH each year, it is not surprising that a small number of large 
grantees accounted for almost half of the late closeouts. These large 
grantees had the largest absolute number of late closeouts, but this 
does not necessarily indicate that they had a greater proportion of 
late closeouts than other grantees. 
Late closeouts were common across funding mechanisms in the 
module.  The closeout module included 73 types of funding 
mechanisms, rolled up into 10 categories ranging from research 
project grants (R) to cooperative agreements (U). The proportion of 
late closeouts ranged from 46 percent to 100 percent across the 10 
categories of funding mechanisms. Research project grants (R), which 
Table 2. Late Closeouts by Grant Mechanism 
Number of  Number of Late  Percent of Late 
Category of Grant Mechanisms  Closeouts in the  Closeouts in the  Closeouts in the 
Module  Module  Module 
Research Projects (R)  7,974  7,242  91% 
Research Career (K)  701  658  94% 
Fellowship (F)  310  245  79% 
Research Programs and Centers (P)  274  239  87% 
Research-Related Programs (S)  447  205  46% 
Cooperative Agreements (U)  165  155  94% 
Training Programs (T)  103  96  93% 
Resource (G)  85  58  68% 
Research Construction (C)  62  42  68% 
1  1  100% 
General Clinical Research Center (M) 
Overall Total  10,122  8,941  88% 
Source: OIG analysis of data from NIH's Closeout Module, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  8  F I N D I N G S  
are the most common type of grant mechanism used by NIH, 
accounted for 79 percent of all grants in the closeout module. Of those 
research grants, 91 percent were closed out late. (See Table 2 on the 
previous page.) 
Within the module, late closeouts appeared to be a problem across all 
years.  NIH began using the closeout module starting in August 2002. 
At that time, some institutes entered the most current grants into the 
module, while others entered grants that had been pending closeout 
for several years, as far back as 1994. Considering these varying 
approaches to entering data into the closeout module, and recognizing 
that some institutes have entered all closeouts and others have 
entered more recent closeouts, it is difficult to look at the trend of 
closeouts across the years. Still, for the more recent years of 1999 to 
2002, over 1,000 grants were closed out late per year. In 2002, the 
year in which the closeout module was launched, 2,803 grants were 
closed out late. (See Table 3.) 
Table 3. Late Closeouts by Project Period End Date 
Calendar Year of the  Percent of Late 
Number of Closeouts  Number of Late 
Project Period End  Closeouts in the 
in Module  Closeouts in Module 
Date  Module 
1994  8  8  100% 
1995  217  216  100% 
1996  401  396  99% 
1997  454  439  97% 
1998  690  670  97% 
1999  1,352  1,318  98% 
2000  1,711  1,528  89% 
1,756  1,563  89% 
2001 
3,425  2,803  82% 
2002 
103  0  0% 
2003 
5  n/a  n/a 
No year provided 
Overall Total  10,122  8,941  88% 
Source:OIG analysis of data from NIH's Closeout Module, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  9  F I N D I N G S  
Twenty-three institutes have used the closeout module to varying 
degrees.  Considering the varying approaches to entering data into 
the closeout module, it is difficult to look at the trend of closeouts 
across the institutes. Some institutes have entered as few as 2 grants 
(National Institute on Drug Abuse) while others have entered over 
2,000 (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). 10 
Fourteen institutes have at least 100 late closeouts in the module. 
(See Appendix C.) Of the institutes that have the most closeouts in 
the module (500 or more grants in the module), the proportion of late 
closeouts ranged from 55 to 100 percent. (See Table 4.) Although it 
has provided training on the use of the closeout module to institute 
staff, at the time of our review, NIH did not require institutes to use 
the module. 
Table 4. Late Closeouts for the Institutes with the Most Grants in the Closeout Module 
Number of Late  Percent of Late 
Number of Closeouts 
Institute or Center  Closeouts in the  Closeouts in the 
in the Module 
Module  Module 
Nat. Inst. of Neurological Disorders & Stroke  2,016  1,887  94% 
Nat. Cancer Institute  1,228  1,108  90% 
Nat. Inst. of Child Health & Human Development  964  953  99% 
Nat. Inst. on Deafness and other Communication Disorders  1,008  922  92% 
Nat Inst. Of Allergy & Infectious Diseases  1,060  917  87% 
Nat. Inst. of Dental & Craniofacial Research  593  584  99% 
Nat. Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute  621  566  91% 
Nat. Center for Research Resources  1,005  557  55% 
Nat. Inst. of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases  541  540  100% 
Source: OIG analysis of data from NIH's Closeout Module, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  10  F I N D I N G S  
Federal regulations require 
Grantees submitting closeout documents late is  grantees to submit all closeout 
the primary cause for late closeouts.	 documents no later than 90 
calendar days following the 
termination of a grant.11 
Financial status reports were submitted late most often. Based on data 
from the closeout module, grantees submitted final financial status 
reports late for 49 percent of grants that were closed out late.  On 
average, financial status reports were at least 191 days late. 
Grantees submitted final progress reports late in 37 percent of grants 
closed out late, averaging at least 467 days late.  The closeout module 
does not have a date for final invention reports, as the module was not 
designed to capture it. Instead, the receipt is indicated by a Yes or 
No. Therefore, it is difficult to accurately report the extent of late 
invention statements. However, grantees submitted at least 31 
percent of final invention statements late of grants closed out late. 
This is assuming that all grants with a Yes were received on time, 
which is unlikely. (See Table 5.) Grantees submitted at least 2 of the 
documents late in 35 percent of the grants closed out late, and 5 
percent of grantees submitted all three documents late. 
Table 5. Percent of Late Closeout Documents 
No 
Percent on 
Document  Percent Late  Information in 
Time 
Module* 
Financial Status Report  49%  26%  26% 
Progress Report  37%  54%  9% 
Invention Statement  31%  31%  31% 
Source: OIG analysis of data from NIH's Closeout Module, 2003 
*No information could reflect that the institute has not received the information 
from the grantee or that the system has not been updated to reflect the receipt. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  11  FF II NN DD II NN GG SS  
Grantees experience several challenges in submitting closeout 
documents on time. Eighty-five percent of grantee institutions 
indicated that they had submitted at least one closeout package late 
in the past 3 years. Several reasons may account for this. First, 
grantee institutions commented on our survey that 90 days is not 
always enough time to reconcile accounts and prepare the financial 
status report, especially when subgrantees are involved. Second, they 
also acknowledged that they have difficulty obtaining the necessary 
information in a timely manner from principal investigators at their 
institutions, who are often busy with other grants and may not view 
the final progress report as a high priority. Third, grantee 
institutions commented that limited staff resources and other 
competing priorities hinder their ability to stay on top of closeouts, 
especially as late closeouts accumulate. And finally, grantees must 
submit their invention statements and progress reports on paper 
through regular mail. Only financial status reports can be submitted 
electronically to NIH. Paper submission may contribute to late 
closeouts. 
NIH lacks a reminder system to alert grantees about upcoming due 
dates for closeouts.  As the end of the project period nears, NIH does 
not routinely send a reminder or notice to the grantee about the 
upcoming due date for closeout documents. Instead, NIH informs the 
grantee in the notice-of-grant award for the last budget period, which 
is typically a year before the closeout documents are due. Grantee 
institutions that responded to our survey commented that the lack of 
reminders immediately prior to due dates contributed to late closeout 
documents. 
When grantees submit closeout documents on time, NIH does close out 
the grant in a timely manner. Based on data from the closeout module, 
we found that when all closeout documents were submitted within 90 
calendar days, NIH reviewed and approved the documents within 60 
days 96 percent of the time. Seventeen of the 24 institutes with 
* 
grant-making authority have procedures to manage closeouts.
* 
Since the time of our review, NIH has centralized its grants closeout function, such that 
individual institutes procedures are being replaced by standard operating procedures. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  12  F I N D I N G S  
As late closeouts accumulate, 
Tracking down missing closeout documents 
institute staff commented that 
requires significant time and effort by the 
they find it difficult to address 
institutes. 
the backlog given other 
competing priorities, especially issuing new grants. They also raised 
concerns about the amount of resources they have to manage the 
closeout process and follow-up with grantees regarding late closeout 
documents.  Obtaining missing closeout documents is especially 
difficult for grants that are several years old, because principal 
investigators may have moved on to other institutions and records 
may not be readily available. 
To address this workload, the three institutes we reviewed in-depth 
(the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute 
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and the National Institute of 
General Medical Sciences) hired contractors or staff, who are 
dedicated solely to processing closeout documents from grantees. The 
chief grants management officers at these three institutes mentioned 
dedicated staff as key for processing closeouts, especially the backlog 
of late closeouts. 
In order to obtain missing documents, institutes must follow up, often 
multiple times, with grantees. The NIH Manual recommends 
institutes follow-up with grantees if the closeout documents have not 
been submitted after 90, 120, and 150 calendar days. 12 
The closeout module allows institutes to record up to two follow up 
correspondences with grantees. Because we could not readily obtain 
the correspondence data for all grants in the closeout module, we 
reviewed printouts that contained correspondence data for a sample of 
300 out of 1,560 grants that were closed out late in FY 2002 at the 
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of 
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the National Institute of General 
Medical Sciences. We found that 80 percent of these grants had at 
least 1 recorded correspondence in the closeout module, and 39 
percent had a second recorded correspondence. It is possible that 
institutes conducted additional follow-up that was not recorded in the 
closeout module. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  13  FF II NN DD II NN GG SS  
According to the NIH Manual, 
NIH experiences several challenges in taking 
institutes may impose one of 
corrective actions against grantees for 
several sanctions if the
submitting closeout documents late. 
grantee has not submitted its 
closeout documents within 150 days. 13 If the principal investigator 
has other pending awards with the same institute, the institute may 
withhold future funding from the grantee institution for that 
particular principal investigator until the closeout documents are 
submitted. If the principal investigator has other pending awards at 
other institutes, the institute with the late closeout could request that 
the other institutes also withhold future funding from the principal 
investigators institution. However, it is up to each individual 
institute to determine whether or not to withhold future funding. 
Because the closeout module does not capture such information, we 
were unable to quantify how often institutes withheld future funding. 
However, in interviews, institute staff indicated that they rarely 
resort to withholding future funding from a principal investigator due 
to late closeouts, because it is viewed as too severe a penalty and 
slows down future research. Withholding funds often means 
coordinating with other institutes where the principal investigator 
and grantee institution has pending awards, which can be difficult. 
And in many cases, the option of withholding future funds is not 
possible, as the principal investigator is no longer conducting any 
NIH-funded research. 
Even though we are unable to quantify definitively the number of 
times NIH withheld future funding, 12 percent of grantee institutions 
reported to us that NIH had withheld future funding from their 
institutions due to late submission of closeout documents. However, 
86 percent of grantee institutions indicated that they had submitted 
at least 1 set of closeout documents late in the past 3 years. 
Besides withholding future funding, NIH can impose special award 
conditions on the grantees, such as additional monitoring, for grantee 
institutions with a history of poor performance. 14 However, NIHs 
policy makes no explicit mention of imposing special conditions. 15 
Instead, it discusses the possibility of taking corrective actions when 
there is a pattern of late closeouts, but it provides few specifics about 
what type of corrective actions are appropriate and when they should 
be taken. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  14  FFFF IIII NNNN DDDD IIII NNNN GGGG SSSS  
The closeout module is NIHs 
While the closeout module is promising, it has 
main effort to help reduce late 
some limitations.  closeouts. While the closeout 
module is designed to facilitate 
the closeout process, current limitations hinder its ability to do so. 
Institute staff manually enter grants ready for closeout into the 
module; therefore, completeness is dependent on the staff updating 
the system. (Manual entry is necessary in order to verify the grant is 
ready for closeout.) Based on the number of records entered in the 
module, some institutes are clearly using the module more than 
others. For example, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders 
and Stroke has over 2,000 grants entered in the module while the 
National Institute on Drug Abuse only has 2. As we have already 
indicated, at the time of our review, NIH did not require institutes to 
use the module. 
Even for those institutes that have entered information, it is 
uncertain how diligent they are at keeping the information up to date. 
Many of the records contain missing information, which raises 
questions about whether the information was not submitted to the 
institute or whether the institute failed to enter it. Data on the 
progress report are the most commonly missing information (54 
percent were blank), followed by data on the invention statement (31 
percent were blank), and the financial status report (26 percent were 
blank). (See Table 5 on page 11.) 
In addition, as we have already pointed out, the closeout module 
records only two dates of correspondence between the institute and 
the grantee and does not record any corrective or enforcement actions 
taken by the institutes. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  15  R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S

In NIHs closeout module we found 8,941 late closeouts. This 
presents a vulnerability to NIH, as closeouts are the final point of 
accountability for the grantee. NIH staff spend significant time and 
effort following up with grantees to obtain late closeout documents. 
As for the grantees, late closeouts can jeopardize their future funding. 
NIH is taking important steps toward addressing this problem, 
especially by implementing the closeout module. In addition, NIH 
plans to manage the closeout process from a new central office; this 
approach will help to bring additional attention to closeouts as well as 
create efficiencies. NIH also plans to address closeouts more 
systematically by following up with grantee institutions that have a 
pattern of late closeouts. NIH will continue to conduct outreach to 
grantees about the importance of on-time closeouts and plans to 
require institutes to use the closeout module. Finally, NIH has a 
workgroup as part of its Compliance, Education and Review Team, 
that is examining ways to improve the closeout process. We 
encourage NIH to continue these efforts. 
We also offer four recommendations to NIH on how to further address 
late closeouts. 
Develop an automated reminder system for 
Given that grantees regularly
grantees to alert them of upcoming closeouts. 
fail to submit closeout 
documents on time, an 
automatic reminder system could be a simple yet beneficial way to 
foster grantee compliance. NIH has already developed an automatic 
email notification system to remind principal investigators about 
upcoming due dates for noncompeting applications, which NIH 
requires at the end of each budget period to renew funding. NIH could 
use a similar system to remind grantees about upcoming due dates for 
closeout documents. This reminder should be sent to both the 
principal investigator and the appropriate business official at the 
grantee institution. 
NIH is moving towards
Facilitate the electronic submission of all 
electronic grants 
closeout documents.	 management to facilitate 
other parts of the grant-
making process. We suggest that NIH also include the closeout 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  16  R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S  
process by developing a system by which grantees can submit all 
closeout documents electronically to NIH. Currently only the 
financial status reports can be submitted electronically. The 
electronic submission of closeout documents should help to facilitate 
on-time closeouts. 
NIH has taken an important 
Enhance the closeout modules capabilities.  step toward addressing late 
closeouts by implementing 
the closeout module. We 
recognize that NIH continues to make improvements to the module 
and we believe that this module has the potential to help NIH address 
late closeouts. However, as we have pointed out, not all institutes are 
using it to the fullest extent possible. We recognize that at the time 
we conducted our review the module was less than a year old, and 
therefore institutes may not have been fully aware of how best to use 
it. 
It is important that NIH ensure that all the information in the 
module is up-to-date by requiring all closeouts to be entered into the 
system. We encourage NIH to proceed with its plans to require all 
institutes to use the module. In addition, to ensure the integrity of 
the data, NIH should conduct regular validity checks of the system. 
Not only should NIH ensure the information in the module is 
complete and up-to-date, but it should also improve the structure of 
the closeout module. First, NIH should capture the date of receipt of 
the final invention statement. Currently, this information is not 
recorded in the system. Second, we recommend that NIH capture 
additional dates of correspondence. The current version only allows 
institutes to record up to two dates of correspondence. Institute staff 
indicated that more follow-up is often necessary. Third, we 
recommend that NIH create a field to capture any type of corrective or 
enforcement action that has been taken. This will allow NIH to 
monitor these actions across all institutes and ensure consistency. 
Fourth, we recommend NIH improve the reporting functions of the 
closeout module so that NIH staff can more readily identify patterns 
of late closeouts for grantee institutions and/or principal 
investigators. 
Finally, we encourage NIH to proceed with its plans to make this 
module available for grantees to access on a read-only basis. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  17  RR EE CC OO MM MM EE NN DD AA TT II OO NN  SS  
Providing this closeout information will allow grantees to take a more 
active role in monitoring their own closeouts. 
We found that 50 grantee
Address late closeouts more systematically by 
institutions represent 45 
focusing on grantee institutions.  percent of the late closeouts 
in the module. Efficiencies 
could be gained if NIH followed up with key administrators at these 
institutions, rather than having institute staff follow up on individual 
grants.  NIH should routinely identify patterns of late closeouts by 
grantee institutions and principal investigators. We recognize NIH 
plans to move in this direction and we encourage NIH to do so. 
Ideally, the new central office managing closeouts could identify these 
patterns across all of NIH. 
Once NIH identifies either a principal investigator or a grantee 
institution with a pattern of late closeouts, it should take appropriate 
corrective actions to address the situation. In addition to withholding 
any future funding from individual principal investigators at 
particular grantee institutions, we suggest that NIH consider 
providing technical assistance to grantee institutions with a pattern 
of late closeouts. This could be accomplished through general 
outreach efforts or through targeted follow-up with individual 
grantees. This could involve a review of the grantee institutions 
policies and procedures for processing closeouts internally and 
training for principal investigators and other key staff. 
NIH should also consider using its authority to impose special 
conditions on grantee institutions with poor performance, to address 
late closeouts. In order to do so, NIH should identify what special 
conditions are appropriate for grantee institutions with a pattern of 
late closeouts. 16 
Agency Comments 
NIH reviewed a draft of this report and concurred with our 
recommendations. In its comments, NIH indicated additional steps that 
it is planning to address these issues, such as requiring the inclusion of 
all grants expiring on or after October 1, 2004 in the closeout module 
and centralizing the grants closeout function. We appreciate NIHs 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  18  attention to these important issues. For the full text of the agencys 
comments, see Appendix D. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  19
   A P P E N D I X   ~   A

Methodology 
NIH Closeout Module Data Analysis 
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided us with records of all 
grants in the closeout module as of April 2003. The records supplied 
from the module originated from the database management system 
known as the Information for Management, Planning, Analysis, and 
Coordination (IMPAC II). NIH uses IMPAC II for managing and 
monitoring grants. NIH has used IMPAC II for managing and 
monitoring grants for the past 10 years. 
We received a dataset of 10,130 records. For each grant, the dataset 
included the grant number, grantee institution name and identification 
number, grant mechanism and type, total award amount, awarding 
institute, budget end date, project end date, final financial status report 
receipt date, final financial status acceptance date, final progress report 
date, final invention statement receipt (yes/no), and grant closeout date. 
We eliminated eight grants from our analysis because of missing 
information or apparent data entry errors. The revised dataset had a 
total of 10,122 records. 
In consultation with NIH, we classified a closeout as late if the closeout 
date was 150 days or more after the project end date. The grantee has 
90 calendar days to submit the closeout documents (final financial 
status report, final progress report, and final invention statement) 
following the termination of the grant. In addition, we added 60 
calendar days to allow NIH staff to review and approve the documents 
submitted by the grantees. 
We tallied the number of late closeouts overall, as well as by year, by 
grantee institution, by institute, by grant mechanism, and by number of 
months/years late. We performed our analyses using SAS software 
version 8.0, a statistical software package. 
Data limitation. NIHs closeout module allows the institutes to track 
grants that are ready for closeout. In order for a grant to be captured in 
the closeout module, institute staff must enter the grant in the module. 
Because the module depends on someone to enter the grants, it is 
unlikely that the module contains all grants ready for closeout. This is 
further complicated by the fact that at the time of our review, the 
module had been in use for only about 8 months, and institutes use it to 
varying extents. For example, some institutes have entered closeouts 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  20  A P P E N D I X ~ A  
from the past several years, whereas other institutes have only entered 
the most recent closeouts. Therefore, we cannot make any conclusions 
about the entire population of closeouts based solely on that data. This 
limitation applies to all data analysis based on the closeout module. 
NIH Closeout Module Correspondence Analysis 
We obtained computer printouts from the closeout module for a 
stratified sample of 300 grants that were closed out late (at least 150 
days after the project end date) or were still open at least 150 days after 
the project end date. From these printouts, we obtained the dates of 
the correspondence from the institutes to the grantees to obtain missing 
closeout documents. We relied on these printouts because we could not 
readily obtain this information electronically for all grants in the 
closeout module. 
In order to concentrate on the most prominent funding sources, we 
limited our population to three of the largest institutes: National Heart, 
Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and 
Infectious Diseases, and the National Institute of General Medical 
Sciences. (For fiscal year (FY) 2002, these three institutes were in the 
top four in terms of number of extramural research grants and amount 
funding for extramural research grants.) We excluded the largest 
institute, the National Cancer Institute, because it already has an 
active monitoring system in place to identify late closeouts and their 
causes.  We stratified our sample by institute. (See Table 6.) 
Table 6. Sample Design 
Population of  Sample of 
Strata for File Review  Late  Late 
Closeouts  Closeouts 
National Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute  522  100 
National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases  784  100 
National Institute of General Medical Sciences  254  100 
Total  1,560  300 
Source: OIG analysis, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  21  A P P E N D I X ~ A  
For each of the 300 late closeouts, we recorded the follow-up the 
institutes had with the grantee to obtain the closeout documents. We 
noted the dates of any letters sent to the grantee and any comments 
added to the remarks section. We analyzed the data to determine what 
percent of late closeouts received one follow-up and what percent of late 
closeouts received a second follow-up. 
Institute Procedure Review 
We requested operating procedures related to closeouts from all 
24 institutes with grant-making authority. Seventeen of the 
24 institutes with grant-making authority provided us with materials; 
the other 7 (National Institute of Child Health and Human 
Development, National Center for Complementary and Alternative 
Medicine, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and 
Bioengineering, National Eye Institute, National Institute on Aging, 
National Institute of Nursing Research, and National Center on 
Minority Health and Health Disparities) did not maintain operating 
procedures specific to closeouts at the time of our review. We included 
in our review any written procedures, instruction manuals, checklists, 
worksheets, timelines, flowcharts, and form letters sent to us by the 
institutes. We assessed the number of institutes that maintained 
guidelines related to (1) tracking closeouts, (2) following up with 
grantees, and (3) instructions on the closeout process. 
Survey of NIH Grantee Institutions 
We selected a simple random sample of 135 grantee institutions from the 
375 locations that received 10 or more research grants from NIH in FY 
2002.  We restricted our sample to institutions with 10 or more research 
grants to ensure that they had a wide range of experiences with NIH, so 
that any problems they reported with closeouts would not reflect an 
anomaly. We drew our sample from a list of 2,532 institutions provided 
by NIH. 
We oversampled by an additional 18 locations in order to obtain our 
desired sample size. From 153 grantee institutions, we eliminated 2 
foreign institutions, 2 institutions with incomplete contact information, 
and 14 duplicates (where 2 or more divisions of a research institution 
were included in our sample, we kept only the first entry in order to avoid 
duplication.) 
The survey contained seven questions on late closeouts, which 
addressed the main factors that cause late closeouts, the extent to 
which late closeouts create problems, and recommendations for 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  22  A P P E N D I X ~ A  
improving the closeout process. We pretested our survey with grantee 
institutions. 
We addressed the survey to the business official identified by NIH. In 
cases where NIH had not identified a business official, we addressed 
the survey to a senior grants administrator. In both instances, we 
indicated in our cover letter that a senior grants administrator who is 
knowledgeable about NIH grants was to complete the survey. 
To ensure a high response rate, we first sent an introductory letter to 
each institution in our sample, explaining the significance of the 
survey. One week later, we mailed the survey. We followed up with a 
second survey for institutions that did not send back our survey within 
3 weeks. 
We received 111 responses to our survey, for a response rate of 82 
percent. Nonrespondent analysis found no significant difference 
between respondents and nonrespondents in terms of average number 
and funding of research awards. The estimates given in the report are 
within plus or minus 7 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence 
level (See Table 7 below and Table 8 on the following page.) 
Table 7. Nonrespondent Analysis by Number of 
Research Awards 
Average Number of Awards 
Sample (n=135)  108 
Respondents (n=111)  107 
Nonrespondents (n=24)  112 
t=0.15  Degrees of freedom=133 
Source: OIG survey of NIH grantees, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  23  A P P E N D I X ~ A  
Table 8. Nonrespondent Analysis by Amount of 
Funding 
Average Amount of Funding 
Sample (n=135)  $37,550,528.82 
Respondents (n=111)  $37,303,671.78 
Nonrespondents (n=24)  $38,692,242.60 
t=0.12  Degrees of freedom=133 
Source: OIG survey of NIH grantees, 2003 
Interviews of NIH officials 
We interviewed a program officer, a grants management specialist, and 
the chief grants management officer at the National Heart, Lung, and 
Blood Institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious 
Diseases, and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. We 
discussed the causes and effects of late closeouts, any systems that the 
institutes had in place to track and monitor closeouts, and any barriers 
to closing out grants on time. We also solicited their recommendations 
for improving the closeout process and the closeout module. 
We also spoke with staff at the Office of Extramural Research and with 
institute administrators involved in NIH-wide grants administration 
efforts, who described the initiatives that NIH has planned or 
underway to reduce the likelihood of closeouts. We discussed the 
causes and effects of late closeouts, and any barriers to closing out 
grants on time. We also solicited their recommendations for improving 
the closeout process. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  24    A P P E N D I X   ~   B

Confidence Intervals for Key Findings 
Below, we provide the point estimate and 95 percent confidence interval 
for each of our key findings. The point estimates and confidence 
intervals for the findings vary based on the standard error for each 
individual finding. 
Sample  Point  Confidence 
Data Source  Key Findings 
Size  Estimate*  Interval 
Percent of grants with at least 1 
NIH closeout module  recorded correspondence in the  300  80%  +/-5%
correspondence analysis  closeout module 
Percent of grants with at least 2 
recorded correspondence in the  300  39%  +/-6% 
closeout module 
*Note: Point estimates are weighted. 
Source: OIG analysis, 2003 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  25    A P P E N D I X   ~   C

Late Closeouts for All Institutes in the NIH Closeout 
Module* 
Number of  Number of Late  Percent of Late 
Institute/Center  Closeouts in the Closeouts in the Closeouts in the 
Module  Module  Module 
National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke  2,016  1,887  94% 
National Cancer Institute  1,228  1,108  90% 
National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases  1,060  917  87% 
National Institute on Deafness & Other Communication Disorders  1,008  922  92% 
National Center for Research Resources  1,005  557  55% 
National Institute of Child Health & Human Development  964  953  99% 
National Heart, Lung, & Blood Institute  621  566  91% 
National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research  593  584  99% 
National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases  541  540  100% 
National Institute of General Medical Sciences  386  323  84% 
National Institute of Nursing Research  169  156  92% 
Fogarty International Center  154  131  85% 
National Institute of Mental Health  120  108  90% 
National Institute of Arthritis & Musculoskeletal & Skin Diseases  113  112  99% 
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism  51  17  33% 
National Library of Medicine  28  15  54% 
National Human Genome Research Institute  21  7  33% 
National Institute on Aging  12  12  100% 
National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine  12  12  100% 
National Eye Institute  10  10  100% 
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging & Bioengineering  6  0  0% 
National Institute on Drug Abuse  2  2  100% 
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences  2  2  100% 
Overall Total  10,122  8,941  88% 
Source: OIG analysis of data from NIH's Closeout Module, 2003 
*24 ICs have grant-making authority but the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities was established in 2000 
and has not yet closed out a grant. 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  26
   A P P E N D I X   ~   D

Agency Comments

OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  27
 A P P E N D I X ~ D  
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  28
 A P P E N D I X ~ D  
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  29
 A P P E N D I X ~ D  
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  30
   A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

This report was prepared under the direction of Mark R. Yessian, Ph.D., 
Regional Inspector General for Evaluation and Inspections in the Boston 
Regional Office, and Joyce M. Greenleaf, MBA, Assistant Regional 
Inspector General. Other principal Office of Evaluation and Inspections 
staff who contributed include: 
Aimee Golbitz, Project Leader 
Danielle Fletcher, Program Analyst 
Sara Schulman, Program Analyst 
Genevieve Nowolinski, Program Specialist 
Ayana Everett, Program Specialist 
Elise Stein, Director, Public Health and Human Services 
Technical Assistance 
Barbara Tedesco, Mathematical Statistician 
OEI-01-03-00021  NIH GRANTS MANAGEMENT: LATE CLOSEOUTS  31    E N D   N O T E S

1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Performance and 
Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2002, Appendix A. 
2 45 CFR  74 and 92. 
3 NIH Grants Policy Statement, March 2001, p. 25. 
4 NIH is comprised of 27 institutes and centers, such as the National 
Cancer Institute. Only 24 institutes have grant-making authority. 
5 45 CFR  74.70-73. 
6 NIH Manual, 5805-Closeout of NIH Grants, Release Date 2/16/00. 
7 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services FY 2002 
Performance and Accountability Report, Independent Auditors 
Report and Management Response, p. 12. 
8 General Accounting Office, NIH Research: Improvements Needed in 
Monitoring Extramural Grants (GAO/AIMD-00-139), May 2000. 
9 National Cancer Institute, Office of Management, Grants 
Administration Branch Business Plan, February 2002. 
10 There are 24 institutes with grant-making authority. However, the 
National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities was 
established in 2000 and has not yet closed out a grant. 
11 45 CFR  74.70-73. 
12 NIH Manual, 5805-Closeout of NIH Grants, Release Date 2/16/00. 
13 NIH Manual, 5805-Closeout of NIH Grants, Release Date 2/16/00. 
14 45 CFR  74.14.  E E N D N O T E S  
15 NIH Manual, 5805-Closeout of NIH Grants, Release Date 2/16/00. 

16 45 CFR  74.14.

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