TO: UW Researchers and Administrators
FROM: Lynne Chronister and the OSP Staff
Re: NIH Deadlines and Dungeons
Since we are now in the month of September it means that many of you are well into pulling together your NIH proposals and others that are due in October. October is one of the busiest deadlines of the year so I wanted to update you on Grants.gov, System-to- System submission and OSP staffing.
Grants.gov
Last year we were dealing with deadlines using the PureEdge software. This year we have the new Adobe version but it has its own challenges including:
- Only 160 proposals per hour NATIONALLY can be submitted through Adobe. So if over 160 people across the country waited until the last minute, they wouldn’t all make it through.
- Adobe works best with “clean” software. If there are any pop-ups, cookies or other enhancements on a system, the proposal may get hung up and not go through. We have had many proposals sit on our system overnight or for hours before they would go through to be submitted electronically. This is a grants.gov glitch and not something we can fix on campus.
OSP is making strong efforts to make our processes transparent so we want to help you avoid the feeling that when you use Grants.gov you are tossing your proposals into the dark and dank dungeon! Therefore we recommend that you send your completed, ready to submit proposal to OSP five days before the deadline but certainly within 48 hours ahead of the Grants.gov deadline. We will NOT hold onto the proposals until the last minute but need time to make sure the proposal is going through without errors.
SAGE System-to-System Submission
Over the last few months we have tested SAGE System-to-System submissions with a number of NIH applications with modular budgets and they have gone very smoothly and much faster. We intend to do a final pilot in November prior to initiating an incremental release across campus. System-to-System will improve the efficiency and stability of many of the system issues we are experiencing with Adobe, but not all. We are still limited to the number of S-2-S submissions that can be pushed through at a time, and the speed at which Grants.gov can process them. Over the last few months we have tested the System-to-System submissions with a number of RO1 proposals and they have gone very smoothly and much faster. So, again, early submission is again critical to assure that the proposals make it through grants.gov.
OSP Staffing
First, thank you for your patience with us while we re-build the staff and moved to a new location. In June, we moved to the UW Tower (16th and 17th floors) and are now pretty well settled. We are planning an Open House soon and hope that you will come and visit.
We also have many new staff who are well qualified, learning rapidly, and working with our experienced staff to team with campus faculty and administrators. Right now we are still short six staff, including two associate directors, but we anticipate being completely staffed within the next month to six weeks.
Thank you! We look forward to working with you on your October deadlines and in the coming months.
