Research Grants Guidance and Policies

These pages are designed to assist applicants and recent recipients with information on the STAR program and grants reporting requirements, quality assurance, forms and frequently asked questions.

Quality Assurance

EPA requires specific quality assurance activities be performed to ensure that the data collected or used are sufficient and adequate for their intended purpose, such as to test a hypothesis. EPA requirements are broadly defined in the Federal procurement and financial assistance regulations. The document and link below provide detailed guidance in meeting those quality requirements.

EPA Quality System
The EPA has developed a Quality System to manage the quality aspects of its environmental data collection, generation and use.

Guidance on Satisfying EPA Quality Requirements for STAR Grants (PDF) (20 pp, 97 K, About PDF)
This document assists applicants and grantees in meeting EPA quality requirements for the STAR Program. It provides information for documenting quality assurance in the proposal, and contains additional guidance for recipients when more detailed information is later required.

Acknowledgement of EPA Research Funding

The EPA takes great pride in supporting the research advances made by EPA grant, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and fellowship recipients. The Lead/Contact principal investigator is responsible for ensuring that all members of the project team comply with these acknowledgement requirements. Learn more about acknowledge of EPA research funding.

Policy on Multiple Principal Investigators for Federally Funded Research Projects

Effective May 1, 2008, non-competitive applications and Requests for Applications (RFA) will uniformly allow more than one Principal Investigator (PI) to be identified on research grant and cooperative agreement applications.

EPA Implementation Plan for Policy on Multiple Principal Investigators for Federally Funded Research Projects (PDF) (2 pp, 16 K)

Policy on Participation in Funding Opportunities with Other Federal Agencies

This document describes eligibility requirements for other federal agency participation in EPA joint funding opportunities.

Notice of Willingness to Participate in Funding Opportunities of Other Federal Agencies (pdf) (117.43 KB)

Policy on Class Exception from 40 CFR Part 40.150

This document describes a class exception, under the authority of 40 CFR Part 31.6(d), from 40 CFR Part 40.150, Evaluation of Applications, relating to the review process used by the Office of Research and Development's (ORD) National Center for Environmental Research (NCER) to review applications for research or demonstration grants.

Class Exception from 40 CFR Part 40.150 (2 pp, 418 K)