Important Information for KU Lawrence Campus Investigators:
Electronic Proposal Submission Via Grants.Gov (Especially NIH Submissions)
- Q. What is Grants.gov?
- A. Grants.gov is a portal website that allows organizations
to search and apply for federal funding opportunities. It currently
handles the grant application submissions for many federal
agencies. Eventually, all federal agencies will be required
to utilize this portal for their submissions. Many of the larger
federal granting agencies, including NIH and NSF,
have established timelines for transition to this site. Please
note: For now, many functions, such as reviewing the status
of your application or submitting ongoing materials, will continue
to be administered on the specific agency websites. For example,
Just In Time (JIT) information for NIH will
continue to be submitted utilizing the NIH eRA Commons,
not Grants.gov. New R01 submissions will be submitted via Grants.gov
for the February 1, 2007 deadline.
- Q. Will all proposals be submitted through Grants.gov?
- A. According to the National Council of University Research
Administrators (NCURA), all agencies are required to post at
least 75 percent of their discretionary awards on Grants.gov
in 2006. Many federal agencies, such as NIH,
have posted timelines on their websites that follow this mandate.
- Q. Is KU/KUCR registered
in Grants.gov?
- A. Yes.
- Q. As an investigator, do I need to register with Grants.gov?
- A. No. Only the institution needs to register. Additional
administrators are registered as authorized organizational
representatives (AOR) who are designated as signing officials
(SO) by the institution.
- Q. As an investigator, do I need to register with eRA Commons?
- A. Yes, if you plan to be a Principal Investigator (PI)
or Co-Investigator (Co-I) on an NIH proposal.
If you have not already registered, please contact KUCR Proposal
Services to begin the process.
- Q. Why do I, as an investigator, need to register with the eRA Commons
when I'll be submitting my NIH proposal
through Grants.gov?
- A. The SF424RR form's Senior Personnel Profile requires PI's
to include a "Credential e.g. agency login." This
credential is the eRA Commons
user ID. When a proposal is submitted via Grants.gov, there
will be a two-business-day interval when the PI and
the institutional SO can
view and correct any errors in the proposal via the eRA Commons
system. A proposal is not considered submitted until it is
error-free.
- Q. How do I find solicitations or opportunities on the Grants.gov
website?
- A. Funding opportunities are listed at Find
Grant Opportunities page of the Grants.gov web site.
You can browse by category, keyword or other criteria.
- Q. What about agencies that have established web submission
sites, such as the NSF or
U.S. Department of Education? Will they be using Grants.gov
as their submission site?
- A. Agencies that already have their own websites are still
encouraged to utilize Grants.gov. Timelines of transition for
the NSF and NIH are
available.
- Q. Do I need a service provider in order to submit to Grants.gov?
- A. The KU Center for Research is the sponsored research
administrator for the Lawrence campus. A PI cannot
submit a proposal directly to Grants.gov, but this is also
true for most proposal submission websites, which require an
authorized representative from the institution to submit the
proposal. Generally speaking, service providers complete forms,
format documents, and upload documents to Grants.gov. KUCR Proposal
Services offers the same services.
- Q. When all proposals are submitted through Grants.gov, will
our campus and Grants.gov be able to handle the volume?
- A. KUCR Proposal
Services currently assists investigators who submit proposals
to Grants.gov. We are working to ensure that the Lawrence campus
will be prepared when exclusive use of Grants.gov is mandated.
For more information, please see the Grants.gov
quarterly newsletter for highlights of ongoing
issues.
- Q. What is a "PureEdge Viewer" and why do I need
it?
- A. The PureEdge Viewer is a free program. It enables you
to access, complete, and submit applications securely via Grants.gov.
Grants.gov is working with PureEdge to develop a unified download
solution. At this time, however, the PureEdge Viewer does not
work on Macintosh computers.
- Q. I'm not a Windows user. What does this mean for me?
- A. You can utilize the Citrix server from the Mac
Support page of the Grants.gov website. Virtual PC is
also available for non-Windows users at the same link.
Please
note: Because KUCR works
on and submits the proposal, investigators need to know how
to provide the forms to KUCR in
the proper format. KUCR Proposal
Services will work with the PureEdge forms to facilitate
submission. For technical assistance, please contact Suzanne
Henderson, shenders@ku.edu, 785-864-7403.
- Q. What happens after my NIH proposal
is submitted via Grants.gov?
- A. Once a proposal is submitted, the AOR who
submitted it will receive a series of e-mails verifying the
submission, confirming receipt at Grants.gov, and notifying
the AOR that
the grantor agency has retrieved the proposal from Grants.gov.
The grantor agency has its own error checking system. It will
generate e-mail notifications regarding any errors that must
be corrected. It will also warn of errors that may be corrected.
Common e-mail notifications are listed in the E-mail
Notificaions pdf file available from the NIH website.
The turnaround time for validation can be up to 48 hours before
your application is retrieved by the grantor agency. The application
is not considered officially received until the grantor agency
checks the proposal and ensures it is error-free. This may
take an additional 48 hours. These turnaround times have no
bearing on the deadline for submitting the grant.
- Q. What is the difference between errors and warnings in
the NIH eRA Commons
system?
- A. An error is any condition that causes the application
to be deemed unacceptable for further consideration. Errors
are significant inaccuracies, inconsistencies, omissions, or
formatting identified in the body of the application. A warning
is any condition that is acceptable but worth bringing to the
applicant's attention. The applicant must decide whether a
warning requires further action.
- Q. What are some common errors and how can they be avoided
when a proposal is transferred from Grants.gov to the grantor
agency website?
- A. The NIH website offers
advice on many common errors that occur when a proposal is
pulled from the Grants.gov website into NIH eRA Commons.
The Grants.gov
website also offers information. A proposal can be checked
for errors in Grants.gov at any time. Currently, there is no
way to check for errors in the grantor agency website prior
to submission. It is important to submit in a timely fashion
- the earlier the better -- to allow time for correcting any
errors.
Web sites of interest
Questions? Please contact:
Suzanne Henderson
785-864-7403 | shenders@ku.edu
Senior Grant Specialist | Proposal Services
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