Notice Number: NOT-OD-07-070

Key Dates
Release Date: June 22, 2007

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH), (http://www.nih.gov)
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), http://www.ahrq.gov/)
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NIOSH/CDC) http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/oep)

The purpose of this Notice is to inform the research community of a change in the electronic submission of grant applications process. Specifically, NIH/AHRQ/NIOSH will now exclude Federal holidays from the two weekdays provided for applicants to review their assembled application in the eRA Commons (referred to as the “application viewing window”).

Electronic applications are submitted to Grants.gov (Federal-wide portal for grant application submission) and then picked up and processed by the eRA Commons. When submitted to Grants.gov, the application is a collection of individual forms.  Once an error-free application is processed by eRA Commons, the individual forms are assembled into a single application image (in PDF format) and stored in the eRA Commons. Applicant organizations and principal investigators are then able to login to the eRA Commons and view the assembled application. Since this is their first chance to see their application as a reviewer would see it, the eRA Commons system holds the application for a two day application viewing window before the submission is deemed complete and the application automatically moves forward to the Division of Receipt and Referral in the Center for Scientific Review for further processing. During the application viewing window, the application Signing Official has the option to reject the application.

In the past, Federal holidays were included in the two weekdays allowed for the application viewing window. Effective immediately (thus including July 4, 2007), Federal holidays will be excluded from the two weekday application viewing window and all applications will be held for at least two full, non-holiday weekdays (Monday-Friday). The ten Federal holidays are: New Years Day, Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.

The following resources are available for assistance in the electronic submission of grant applications to NIH/AHRQ/NIOSH through Grants.gov.

General Information:
http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm
http://www.ahrq.gov/path/egrants.htm

Inquiries

Inquiries regarding this Notice should be directed to:

Grants Info
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health
Phone: 301-945-7573
TTY: 301-451-5936
Email: grantsinfo@nih.gov