GRANT OR COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT

Description of Instruments

As defined in the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act (31 U.S.C. 6304 and 6305), a grant or a cooperative agreement is a legal instrument used by a Federal agency to enter into a relationship whose principal purpose is assistance (that is, the transfer of something of value to the recipient to carry out a public purpose of support or stimulation authorized by U.S. law). Thus, grants and cooperative agreements complement procurement contracts and other instruments used for the very different purpose of acquiring goods and services for the direct benefit or use of the U.S. Government. When providing assistance, agencies must use grants when substantial involvement between the recipient and the Government is not contemplated and cooperative agreements when substantial involvement is contemplated.

Applicable Guidance

Grants awarded between February 8, 1994, and April 12, 1998, were subject to interim guidance issued by the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) for the award and administration of DoD assistance instruments. That interim guidance was issued as two attachments to a policy memorandum, "Grants, Cooperative Agreements and Other Transactions," dated February 8, 1994. The memorandum's Attachment 1 provided general instructions on how DoD Components were to use the interim guidance. The memorandum's Attachment 2 was an interim-guidance version of the DoD Grant and Agreement Regulations (DoDGARs), which provide uniform policies and procedures for awarding and administering grants and cooperative agreements.

The interim guidance was issued to test requirements for awarding and administering grants and cooperative agreements while the formal guidance was being developed. However, the following parts of the DoDGARs had full legal force and effect and were already codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) when the interim guidance was issued in 1994:

• Part 25-Government-wide Debarment and Suspension (Nonprocurement) and Government-wide Requirements for a Drug-Free Workplace (Grants).

  
  

• Part 28-New Restrictions on Lobbying.

  
  

• Part 33-Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Agreements to State and Local Governments.

  
  

During the four years the interim guidance was in effect, the DDR&E issued seven updates to it called Defense Grant and Agreement Circulars (DGACs), as follows:

• DGAC 94-1, as amended by DGAC 94-1A, issued and effective on January 25, 1995. It transmitted an interim final rule concerning military recruiting on university campuses.

  
  

• DGAC 94-2, issued on May 1, 1995, with an effective date of April 19, 1995. It transmitted an amended DoDGARs Part 33, the DoD's implementation of the Government-wide rule to implement OMB Circular A-102, and set requirements for awards to State and local governments.

  
  

• DGAC 94-3, issued on July 5, 1995, with an effective date of June 26, 1995. It transmitted an amended DoDGARs Part 25, the DoD's implementation of the Government-wide rule on nonprocurement debarment and suspension.

  
  

• DGAC 94-4, issued on March 15, 1996, with an effective date of March 8, 1996. It transmitted DoDGARs Part 23, the final rule concerning military recruiting on university campuses.

  
  

• DGAC 94-5, issued and effective on August 9, 1996. It specified that the 1993 version of OMB Circular A-110, "Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals and Other Non-Profit Organizations," should be used in place of the Circular's 1976 version.

  
  

• DGAC 94-6, issued and effective on August 29, 1997. It amended DoDGARs Part 33 to reflect a change in the audit requirements for State and local governments.

  
  

• DGAC 94-7, issued on April 2, 1998, with an effective date of April 13, 1998. It stated that DoD 3210.6-R was being issued as a formal DoD publication. On April 13, 1998, the new DoD 3210.6-R superseded most of the guidance in the two attachments to the 1994 DDR&E memorandum. However, parts of Attachment 1 remain in effect for "other transactions," technology investment agreements, and cooperative agreements that provide for recoupment of funds.

  
  

Effective April 13, 1998, the first formal publication of DoD 3210.6-R, the DoD Grant and Agreement Regulations (DoDGARs), replaced the interim guidance for all newly awarded grants and almost all new cooperative agreements. Some portions of the interim guidance remain in effect (see DGAC 94-7) for

(1) cooperative agreements that are technology investment agreements, described in Technology Investment Agreement (TIA) attachment of this web site;

(2) cooperative agreements using the funds recoupment authority in 10 U.S.C. 2371; and

(3) certain other types of agreements described in the "other transactions" section of this Web site.

This Web site maintains an electronic copy of the interim guidance including all issuances and a history of pages that are no longer current.

The 1998 issuance of the DoDGARs (DoD 3210.6-R) is now the source of the rules on awarding and administering all grants and almost all cooperative agreements. The DoDGARs are published in and available from two sources:

(1) They are published in DoD's internal regulatory system maintained by the Washington Headquarters Service (WHS). An official electronic copy of DoD's internal publication of the DoDGARs is available on-line at the WHS site: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/32106.htm.

(2) They are codified in subchapter B of chapter I in title 32 of the CFR, published by the Office of the Federal Register. The CFR is accessible on-line through the Government Printing Office (GPO) Web site (http://www.access.gpo.gov) or by contacting the GPA Access User Support Team by e-mail at gpoaccess@gpo.gov or toll-free at 1-888-293-6498. One may also need to check the Federal Register, which also is available at the GPA Web site, to see whether any updates to the CFR version of the DoDGARs have been issued too recently to be included in the GPO's electronic CFR.

• DGAC 98-1, issued on April 18, 2000, with an effective date of April 17, 2000. It stated that two interim final amendments to the DoDGARs had been published consequent to a multi-agency rule in the Federal Register on March 16, 2000 [65 FR 14406ff.]. The first amendment is to Section 32.36 of Part 32 and it requires universtity and other nonprofit recipients to send DoD Components certain data produced under awards it the public request the data through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) procecedures. The second amendment is to Appendix C of Part 22 and it makes the table in the Appendix consistent with the changed section 32.36.