Electronic Grant Submissions
NIH and NSF institute new requirements for electronic grant submission
The Federal government is moving towards a uniform electronic submission portal for all grant applications -- Grants.gov if you haven't already heard of it. CSDE staff would be happy to help you learn to navigate the new system.
Grants.gov is the Federal Government's new electronic portal through which everybody will apply for federal grants. It will probably take two years for full implementation but in the end all 26 federal agencies will have transitioned to Grants.gov. NIH has already begun and is offering training sessions now. And yes, NSF Fastlane will disappear at some point also.
Here is a broad overview and a few web sites to help us with this migration. Everybody including OSP is learning by trial and error but here's how it is suppose to go:
- First you will need to download and install the PureEdge Viewer from this website: http://www.grants.gov/DownloadViewer . This is Grants.gov's browser plugin needed for preparing proposals. CSDE can help with the download if you have problems.
- There is an approximately 5-minute training demonstration "How to Complete an Application Package" at this website: http://www.grants.gov/CompleteApplication#demo . Feel free to go in and experiment with it. You can't accidently submit it - only OSP can submit the final package to Grants.gov.
- Search for the funding opportunity or agency program announcement at this website: http://www.grants.gov/Find Once you've found the program announcement it will tell you if you have to use Grants.gov and if so, download the application package from that announcement.
- The application package should open in the PureEdge Viewer. Save the application package to the hard drive or desk top of your computer. Complete the application package. You can save, close, reopen as necessary. You can mail it to Deborah Harper (by attachment) for the budget pages, other details, and for submission to OSP with the eGC-1.
- Once the application package has been reviewed and the eGC-1 has been approved, the OSP administrator will submit the application package to the sponsoring agency via the Grants.gov website.
- The OSP administrator will forward to the PI and departmental administrator copies of the submission confirmation emails that are generated by the Grants.gov system.
- Please note at this time that Grants.gov is used for proposal submissions only. Other actions post-submission (budget revisions, just in time human subjects approvals, etc.) will continue to be submitted to the sponsoring agency according to that agency's current practices (NIH Commons, NSF Fastlane, etc.).
New UW Guide to E-Grant Submission
UW researchers have a new tool for navigating the challenges of the federal government's Grants.gov. The UW's Guide to Electronic Grant Submission provides clear, concise directions with links to UW forms and policies needed at each step. Written with health sciences researchers in mind, the Guide should prove useful to all faculty. Topics include searching for grants, tackling the SF-424, and completing PureEdge forms.
http://depts.washington.edu/sf424vq/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm
NOTES:
FOR TRAINING: OSP is offering Grants.gov one-hour training classes that you can register for at their web site below. http://www.washington.edu/research/osp/gg_training.html
FOR MAC USERS: Interestingly enough PureEdge is for Windows only but they are apparently working on ways for Mac users to interface with Grants.gov like a PC emulator and something called a Citrix Server. Word has it that neither is ideal at the moment.
FOR NIH PI's. The first thing you need do is make sure you have an ERA Commons account. If you need one please let me know. The transition timelines for NIH proposals are at the web site below. The big hurdle will be for the RO1 programs due October 1, 2006. We're told that the Grants.gov forms will be available 60 days before that deadline.