II.5 Notice to Awardees at Time of Award

As part of the program implementing the A-110 revisions mandated by Congress, OMB should direct all awarding agencies to provide a standard notice to all awardees at the time the award is made. OMB may also want to consider requiring that the notice accompany all solicitations for grant proposals or other announcements of proposed research funding. The notice should include statements designed to adequately apprise the awardee of the following information:

1. There is a possibility that any or all data relating to the study will be publically disclosed.

2. Federal rules on data sharing provide that all data, from any entity, that are collected for, contributed to, or generated in connection with the award-related research, are equally subject to possible public disclosure, regardless of whether the entity that collected, contributed or generated the data is itself a grant recipient or other awardee.

3. The data produced under the award may be subject to public disclosure regardless of whether the awardee also receives funding for the research or study from a secondary or private source.

4. The recipient/awardee has an obligation to notify any non-awardee research partners, or any other privately funded organizations considering participating in the study, that any data such non-awardees contribute to the study or research are subject to possible public disclosure.

5. The data produced under the award will be made available to the public through procedures established under the Freedom of Information Act. The awarding agency will perform a review of all materials obtained by the agency from the awardee as a result of a FOIA request and will redact all information subject to FOIA exemption(s) in accordance with the agency's FOIA regulations. The agency will notify and consult with the awardee and any non-awardee private funding or research partner regarding the release of potentially confidential information, but the decision whether to release the information to the public will be that of the agency. The agency will notify the awardee and any non-awardee research or funding partner of the agency's final decision regarding release of the data, and a private party (but not the awardee) may challenge the agency's decision in court.

6. The awardee will be eligible for reimbursement of reasonable costs incurred in connection with responding to applicable FOIA requests.

OMB should require that agencies make the above notice part of their standard procedures in awarding research funds. Providing this information to awardees at the commencement of a study will give fair notice to both awardees and potentially affected private parties of the public data access process. The resulting prospective structuring of data collection will also lead to efficiencies in data management and retrieval.