Core Support for the Federal Demonstration Partnership

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The Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) is a cooperative initiative involving 10 federal agencies and 154 recipient institutions managing federally sponsored research funds. The goal of the FDP is to increase research productivity by streamlining the administrative process for research while maintaining effective stewardship of and full accountability for federal funds. More specifically, FDP strives to maximize research performance per federal dollar by minimizing the monetary and time burdens associated with the administrative aspects of federally-sponsored research. Since its inception, the FDP has successfully worked to reduce administrative burden while accommodating continuous changes to the policies and regulations most significant to research administration. Through the unique forum provided by the FDP, federal agency officials work collaboratively with administrative, faculty, and technical representatives from a broad range of academic research institutions to identify and assess unnecessary burden resulting from policies and processes that can be addressed only through cooperation. Targeted projects, pilots, and demonstrations are an important and defining component of the FDP. Once a new approach is successfully beta tested by a few willing institutions and agencies within the FDP, it is generally accepted by the FDP's members and often by most research funding agencies and recipients. A study and 2016 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on "Optimizing the Nation's Investment in Academic Research" cites and references the work of the FDP throughout. The work that the FDP has accomplished in the past has achieved national recognition and the current proposal outlines further plans for maximizing federal investments in research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.