alterlab-grant-reporting

---
name: alterlab-grant-reporting
description: Drafts post-award grant deliverables across funder formats — NIH RPPR (Annual/Interim/Final via eRA Commons), NSF annual/final project reports and the public Project Outcomes Report (Research.gov), and Horizon Europe / ERC periodic and final reports (technical Part A/B + financial statements on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal) — plus milestone and deliverable tracking, budget-vs-actual variance narratives, no-cost-extension and rebudgeting justifications, and effort/closeout reporting. Computes report due dates from the award period with scripts/report_deadlines.py. Use when the user needs a grant progress or final report, post-award reporting, an RPPR, a periodic report, a no-cost-extension request, milestone tracking, or a budget-variance narrative. For writing new proposals prefer alterlab-research-grants; for TÜBİTAK proposals prefer alterlab-tubitak-proposal. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.
license: MIT
allowed-tools: Read Write Edit Bash(python:*) Bash
compatibility: No API key, account, or network required — report-format guidance plus a stdlib-only deadline calculator (scripts/report_deadlines.py); the user still submits through the funder's own portal (eRA Commons / Research.gov / EU Funding & Tenders Portal)
metadata:
  skill-author: AlterLab
  version: "1.0.0"
---

# Grant Reporting — Post-Award Deliverables Across Funder Formats

Post-award is where money already won has to be *kept*: funders release the next
tranche only when a compliant progress report lands on time, and they claw back
or flag awards when reports slip or numbers don't reconcile. This skill drafts
those deliverables — progress/annual reports, final reports, milestone and
deliverable tracking, budget-vs-actual narratives, and no-cost-extension (NCE)
and rebudgeting justifications — in the exact shape each major funder demands.

It is the **post-award** counterpart to the pre-award proposal skills: it never
writes a new proposal or a fresh budget request. It reports against an award
that already exists.

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when the user needs to:

- Draft an **NIH RPPR** (Research Performance Progress Report) — Annual, Interim,
  or Final — section by section.
- Draft an **NSF annual or final project report**, or the public-audience
  **Project Outcomes Report**.
- Draft a **Horizon Europe / ERC periodic or final report** — the technical
  narrative (Part B) and the structured-table / financial-statement framing.
- Track **milestones and deliverables** against a workplan and write the status
  narrative.
- Write a **budget-vs-actual (variance) narrative** explaining over/under-spend
  by category.
- Justify a **no-cost extension** or a **rebudgeting / virement** request.
- Work out **when** each report is due from the award start/end dates
  (`scripts/report_deadlines.py`).

### Does NOT Trigger — route these elsewhere

| The request is really about… | Route to |
|------------------------------|----------|
| Writing a **new** proposal / project description for NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA, NSTC (pre-award) | `alterlab-research-grants` |
| A **TÜBİTAK** proposal (1001, 1002, etc.) — Turkish funder, pre-award | `alterlab-tubitak-proposal` |
| **Akademik Teşvik** annual incentive-points application (ÜAK) | `alterlab-akademik-tesvik` |
| A **data management plan** / KVKK-compliant DMP for the proposal stage | `alterlab-kvkk-dmp` |
| A **recommendation / reference letter** for a student or colleague | `alterlab-recommendation-letters` |
| Program / department **accreditation** assessment & assurance-of-learning reports | `alterlab-accreditation-aol` |
| Verifying that the **citations** in the report actually exist | `alterlab-citation-verifier` |

This skill assumes the award is already made. If the user is still competing for
funding, stop and route to the pre-award skill above.

## The funder formats (verified)

Each funder fixes the structure; do not invent sections. Deep per-funder detail —
every section, what goes in it, and which sections apply to which report type —
lives in [`references/funder_formats.md`](references/funder_formats.md). The
essentials:

### NIH — RPPR (submitted in eRA Commons)

Three report types share one section skeleton (**A–I**):

| § | Title | Note |
|---|-------|------|
| A | Cover Page | |
| B | Accomplishments | goals, what was done, results, dissemination |
| C | Products | publications, datasets, software, IP |
| D | Participants | personnel + effort; **D.1 is the only Section D item required on Interim/Final** |
| E | Impact | impact on the field, other disciplines, society |
| F | Changes | changes/problems; rebudgeting & scope changes surface here |
| G | Special Reporting Requirements | |
| H | Budget | **Annual (non-SNAP) only** — not on Interim/Final |
| I | Outcomes | **required on Interim & Final**, public-facing |

Report types: **Annual** (next budget period), **Interim** (filed with a competing
renewal — becomes the Final report if the renewal is not funded), **Final**
(closeout). See the references file before drafting.

### NSF — project reports (submitted in Research.gov)

- **Annual project report** — that year's activities and broader impacts.
- **Final project report** — refers only to the final funded year (it is *not*
  cumulative).
- **Project Outcomes Report (POR)** — a public-audience summary of **no more than
  800 words**, separate from the final report.

### Horizon Europe / ERC — periodic & final reports (EU Funding & Tenders Portal)

- A **Technical Report** in two parts: **Part A** (structured tables, generated by
  the Portal from the Continuous Reporting module) and **Part B** (the narrative,
  mirroring the application form and reporting differences/deviations).
- A **Financial Report**: individual and consolidated **Financial Statements**
  (plus a Certificate on the Financial Statements where the threshold applies).
- A **Continuous Reporting** module that stays open for the whole project and
  feeds Part A automatically.

## Deadlines — compute them, don't guess

Reporting deadlines are deterministic functions of the award dates, and missing
one can suspend payments. Use the helper instead of recalling rules from memory:

```bash
uv run python skills/faculty-life/alterlab-grant-reporting/scripts/report_deadlines.py \
    --funder nih-snap --budget-period-start 2026-09-01 --project-end 2028-08-31
```

It encodes only the verified rules (sourced in `references/funder_formats.md`):

- **NIH SNAP** Annual RPPR ≈ **45 days before** the next budget period start;
  **non-SNAP** ≈ **60 days before**; **Final RPPR** within **120 days** of the
  period-of-performance end.
- **NSF** annual report **90 days before** the budget-period end; final report and
  Project Outcomes Report within **120 days** after the award end date.
- **Horizon Europe / ERC** periodic (and final) report within **60 days** after
  each reporting period ends.

The script prints the computed due dates as a table or JSON; it does no network
I/O and always tells the user to confirm against the funder's own notice of
award, because programs can override these defaults.

## How to draft a report

1. **Identify the funder and report type** first — that fixes the template. If the
   user hasn't said, ask (NIH vs NSF vs EU; Annual vs Final).
2. **Pull the deadline** with `report_deadlines.py` from the award dates and lead
   with it, so the user knows the time pressure.
3. **Gather the inputs** the sections need: aims/objectives and milestones,
   what was accomplished this period, products (publications, data, software),
   personnel and effort, and the budget figures (planned vs actual).
4. **Draft section by section** in the funder's own order and headings. Never
   merge or rename funder sections. For each accomplishment, tie it back to a
   stated aim or deliverable.
5. **Write the variance narrative** for any budget category off plan: state the
   planned vs actual amount, the *reason*, and the corrective action or the
   rebudgeting/NCE request it motivates. Detail and templates:
   [`references/budget_variance.md`](references/budget_variance.md).
6. **For an NCE or rebudgeting request**, use the justification structure in
   [`references/nce_rebudget.md`](references/nce_rebudget.md): unspent-funds
   status, the programmatic reason, the revised timeline, and the explicit
   confirmation that no new scope or new funds are requested.
7. **Flag, never fabricate.** Where a number, a publication, or an outcome is
   missing, mark it `[TODO: confirm]` for the user — do not invent figures,
   dates, DOIs, or results. If citations are involved, hand the reference list to
   `alterlab-citation-verifier`.

## Guardrails

- **No invented facts.** Budget figures, effort percentages, milestone dates,
  publication details, and award numbers come only from the user's materials. Mark
  anything missing as a `[TODO]` placeholder.
- **The user submits, not the skill.** This skill drafts text; the user files it
  through eRA Commons / Research.gov / the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. The skill
  has no portal access and claims none.
- **Confirm deadlines against the notice of award.** The calculator encodes the
  general rules; specific programs and cooperative agreements can override them.
- **Reporting period boundaries matter.** An NSF final report covers only the
  final funded year; an NIH Final RPPR adds Section I Outcomes. Don't carry the
  wrong scope across report types.

## References

- [`references/funder_formats.md`](references/funder_formats.md) — full NIH RPPR
  A–I section guide (with which sections apply to Annual/Interim/Final), NSF
  report types, and Horizon Europe / ERC report structure, each with its source.
- [`references/budget_variance.md`](references/budget_variance.md) — budget-vs-actual
  narrative template, variance categories, and worked examples.
- [`references/nce_rebudget.md`](references/nce_rebudget.md) — no-cost-extension and
  rebudgeting/virement justification structures and the questions each funder asks.
- `scripts/report_deadlines.py` — stdlib-only report-deadline calculator.

Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.