Date	6/6/2006
Sender	Beth Burnside, Vice Chancellor for Research
To	All Academic Titles, Deans, Directors, Department Chairs
Subject	Implementing Guidelines for Electronic Proposal Submissions
Message	Deans, Directors, Chairs, and All Academic Titles By February 2007, all twenty-six federal granting agencies must receive the majority of grant proposals through Grants.gov, the federally mandated electronic system that will be used for locating funding opportunities, applying for, and managing grants. Investigators who have submitted electronic proposals under the Grants.gov system have found the process to be more complex and time consuming than the traditional paper application procedure. When the electronic proposal is submitted, Grants.gov checks for errors and omissions, and will not accept the proposal until the errors are corrected. The corrected proposal must be resubmitted to Grants.gov in time to meet the original proposal submission deadline. Due to the nature of Grants.gov, error checking is a very tedious and time consuming process. In order to meet the submission deadline you must plan ahead and allow extra time to finalize the proposal submission. In order to insure successful submission for Grants.gov and all other electronic proposal submissions, it is crucial that Sponsored Projects Office (SPO) receives the fully completed proposal with a signed proposal review form A MINIMUM OF FIVE WORKING DAYS PRIOR TO THE AGENCY RECEIPT DEADLINE. If the proposal is not submitted by this time, SPO cannot guarantee review and successful submission of the application. Early submitters receive faster responses to their proposal submission, have greater access to support staff, and have more time to make any needed corrections to their applications to address errors or omissions. Like any new process, there is a learning curve with electronic submission. Waiting until the last minute to submit your application is risky business - submit early! Sincerely, Beth Burnside Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology