Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests

Occasionally, researchers at WFU with funding from the NIH are notified by NIH that their grant application has been requested under the FOIA. NIH is obligated to provide your most recent grant application and progress reports.  WFU sends nothing.  Before NIH responds to the FOI request, however, it must contact you as the PI.  You can redact from these documents just a little information – any personal identifiers and any proprietary information.  Although NIH tries to pull out your personal information like social security numbers, addresses, etc., they sometimes miss something, so we recommend redacting all personal information for yourself and any other person mentioned in the grant.

The NIH form requests your approval for release, but it is a little misleading.  They will send out your grant information whether you complete the form or not.  The release refers to whether or not additional information should be redacted.

If you receive the form, you may complete it and return it to NIH. Please, let the IACUC know when you receive the request, because we want a sense of the size and nature of any request.  Also, we recommend that you contact your Program Officer/Manager at NIH to keep them in the loop.

Contact the IACUC or Grants & Contracts Administration with questions.