Date	2/9/2006
Sender	Beth Burnside, Vice Chancellor for Research
To	All Academic Titles
Subject	National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Grants.gov
Message	Dear Colleagues: The National Institutes of Health has begun the process of moving toward requiring Principal Investigators to use Grants.gov for submitting grant applications to all NIH grant mechanisms by October 1, 2007. This change will be a massive startup endeavor. Based on past experience I think it is not likely to be bug free, so it will almost certainly have a major impact on the campus handling of sponsored research and on Principal Investigators. There are some things critical to do now so you do not get caught up in the chaos of the first required Grants.gov submissions. All investigators even considering submitting an application to NIH that have not yet registered with the NIH eRA Commons should do so now. Registration in eRA Commons is required to submit through Grants.gov, and the registration process can take up to two weeks. Registration information for Berkeley investigators is available at http://www.spo.berkeley.edu/Procedures/nihcommons.html. Investigators do not need to register separately for Grants.gov; the eRA registration is the mechanism for preparing for grants.gov submission. Investigators submitting NIH applications through Grants.gov should start early and should submit Grants.gov applications to Sponsored Projects Office well before the deadline to allow time for corrections, and submission snafus. Experience on this campus and other campuses indicate that snafus are probable, and present a risk because the application is not considered "submitted" until all submission procedures are ratified by Grants.gov. Applications will be considered late by NIH if not successfully submitted and validated by Grants.gov to be without errors by 5:00 p.m. (Pacific Time) on the deadline date. Investigators also need to inform themselves of the implications of submitting through Grants.gov to prepare themselves for their next round of submission. The NIH Electronic Submission of Grant Applications web site is http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/. Investigators are urged to regularly visit this site to keep pace with the changes in NIH's evolving electronic process. More information on Grants.gov and the NIH transition to Grants.gov is also available on the SPO web site: http://www.spo.berkeley.edu/RA/12_05/december.html#grantsgovnihnsf and http://www.spo.berkeley.edu/Procedures/grantsgov.html. NIH has issued a differentiated timeline for transition of different grant mechanisms to the Grants.gov submission process. Upcoming transition dates are: * Research Dissertation Grant Program (R36): February 17, 2006 * Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) (R15): February 25, 2006 * Biomedical Research Support Shared Instrumentation Grants (S10): March 22, 2006 * Pre-application for Interdisciplinary Research Consortium (X02), April 18, 2006 * Small Grant Programs (R03), Exploratory/Development Research (R21/R33), Clinical Trial Planning Grant Program (R34): June 1, 2006 * Research Demonstration and Dissemination Projects. (R18/U18), Education Projects (R25), Research Facilities Construction Grants (C06/UC6): October 1, 2006 * NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program (DP1): January 22, 2007 * Research Project Grant Program (R01): February 1, 2007 The February 1, 2007 date for all R01 grants is, of course, the most alarming since there are so many submissions from the campus in this mechanism. This implementation date was recently changed from October 2006, partially in acknowledgement of the problems with Grants.gov submissions. We are working closely with other campuses, the Council on Government Relations, and other advocacy groups to try to insure that the government is prepared to have the Grants.gov mechanism fully functional by their announced deadlines. Please take actions on your own to prepare yourself for these requirements. We will keep you posted as we hear of developments in this area as we mobilize the campus procedures for using the Grants.gov mechanism. Ultimately all federal grants are expected to require submission through Grants.gov. Sincerely yours, Beth Burnside Vice Chancellor for Research, and Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology