Office of Research and Project Administration

June 1, our first significant Grants.gov application deadline for NIH R03 and R21 submissions, is almost here.

If you are planning to submit a Small Research or Exploratory/Development Research Grant application to NIH for this deadline, and you have not already notified ORPA, please contact your Research Administrator and let her know of your intentions (see names and phones numbers below).

In addition, if you are not replying to a specific R21 or R03 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA or Program Announcement) you must apply through the Parent R21 FOA or the Parent R03 FOA.  Before proceeding with the Parent applications, you are strongly encouraged to consult the list of participating Institutes/Centerss(ICs) and special research interests to make sure they support these grant mechanisms.  See http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/contacts/pa-06-181_contacts.htm and the R21 Web site at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/r21.htm or  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/contacts/pa-06-180_contacts.htm and the R03 Web site at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/r03.htm.

There are several things you must have in place and be aware of before submitting to Grants.gov and the NIH Commons.

1.  The PI must be registered on NIH Commons - if this has not been done, please do so following the directions on the request to establish a NIH eRA Commons account form .

2.  You must have the "full" (Reader and Writer) version of Adobe Acrobat on your computer because all the grant applications attachments must be uploaded as pdfs.

3.  For actual proposal submission, you must plan to bring over to ORPA the entire proposal on a CD Rom or flash drive.  (In the future, we hope to have a file transfer solution/server available for grant submission.  Unfortunately, we will not have this in place in time for the June 1 submissions.)

4.  Training classes for electronic submission through Grants.gov and NIH Commons are scheduled throughout the summer, starting this month.  Class information and enrollment will be through the CLASP web site at http://www.rochester.edu/ORPA/CLASP/clasp_electives.php .  Scroll down to "Grants.gov Training" and enroll online.

5.  For MAC users, instructions on how to access UR's Citrix server will be available soon.  The UR's Citrix server will be housed in the University Towne House so that it will be accessible to the entire University community.

6.  This deadline is the first big test of the Grants.gov/NIH Commons electronic submission process.  In order to make sure that your proposal is submitted, received (corrected if necessary) and verified by the deadline, ORPA is strongly urging all investigators to have their proposal in the hands of their ORPA RA at least five (5) business days prior to the sponsor deadline.  In other words, a complete, final, paper copy with University sign-off (including an internal budget for modular submissions) should be at ORPA by 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 24, 2006, for the June 1 deadline.  The proposals will be reviewed in the order in which they are received and the ORPA RAs will use their best efforts to make sure they are submitted on time. 

If you have any questions, please contact your ORPA Research Administrator

Donna Beyea - x5-8037
Donna Galloway - x5-1502
Marlene Boutet - x3-3960
Brenda Kavanaugh - x5-1504
Jane Tolbert - x5-4210
Cheryl K. Williams - x5-1503

Cheryl K. Williams
Senior Research Administrator
Office of Research and Project Administration
University of Rochester
515 Hylan Building
Rochester, New York  14627
585-275-1503, telephone
585-275-9492, facsimile
cwilliam@orpa.rochester.edu