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original post by NIH Staff 3/12/2018
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is making major changes to the way the research community registers for NSF accounts and maintains account and user profile information in FastLane and Research.gov. Effective March 26, 2018, NSF is introducing a new centralized and streamlined account registration process in Research.gov for the research community that will provide each new user with a single profile and unique identifier (i.e., NSF ID) for signing in to FastLane and Research.gov for proposal and award activities.
New Functionality
The new account management functionality will:
Existing NSF Accounts
Existing NSF account holders, including Grants.gov and Application Submission Web Service (ASWS) users, will be migrated to the new account management system through a simple, one-time operation when initially signing in to FastLane or Research.gov after the new functionality is released. Account holders will be required to verify information to transfer it to the new system. Each user will have one NSF ID per the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (NSF 18-1), Chapter I.G.4.
Helpful Links
Notes About Grants.gov and ASWS Beginning on March 26, 2018, the Principal Investigator (PI), all co-PIs, and the Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) listed on a Grants.gov proposal must all be registered with NSF prior to proposal submission. NSF IDs for the PI, all co-PIs, and the AOR listed will need to be included in the proposal submission.
New NSF Registration Requirements for Organizations
Planned Releases
The new centralized account management functionality is being released first to the Administrator, PI, AOR, Sponsored Project Officer (SPO), Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Coordinating Official and Financial Official, and Award Cash Management Service (ACM$) groups. NSF plans to eventually expand the new functionality in the future to additional groups including proposal reviewers, GRFP applicants, and NSF staff.
Training Resources
NSF is currently finalizing new account management training resources such as job aids, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and instructional videos. These materials will soon be available on an “About Account Management” page accessible on the Research.gov homepage.
For IT system-related questions, please contact the NSF Help Desk at 1-800-381-1532 or rgov@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions should be directed to policy@nsf.gov.
original post by NSF 3/13/2018
News from AIRI Weekly Washington Report: On February 15, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released an update to their Award Terms and Conditions that revises the micro-purchase threshold for procurement activities under NSF awards. The new guidance indicates that the revised micro-purchase threshold will be $10,000 for awards made to independent research institutes and institutions of higher education. NSF was directed to make this change by the American Competitiveness and Innovation Act (AICA), which was signed by President Obama in January 2017.
AIRI’s top legislative priority in 2016 was raising the micro-purchase threshold to $10,000. While working with Congress to successfully raise the threshold in the fiscal year (FY) 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (see January 6, 2017 AIRI Weekly Washington Report) and the AICA, AIRI worked with OMB to seek an extension for implementation of the Uniform Guidance procurement standards (see April 1, 2016 AIRI Weekly Washington Report and June 3, 2016 AIRI Weekly Washington Report). As a result of these efforts, institutions can now use micro-purchase thresholds up to $10,000, for procurement activities under grants from all agencies. NSF’s revised Award Terms and Conditions provide additional clarity and guidance on the micro-purchase issue. The revised Award Terms and Conditions will apply to all awards made on or after March 1, 2018.
Original post from AIRI Weekly Washington Report dated 2/16/18
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has updated the template for Collaborative and Other Affiliations Information (COA). This template is in accordance with Chapter II.C.1.e of the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG). The template is fillable, however, the content and format requirements must not be altered, as this will create printing and viewing errors. To avoid formatting errors, the template must be saved in .xlsx format and be uploaded to Fastlane directly as a Single Copy Document. Grants.gov Users: The COA information must be provided through the use of the COA template and uploaded as a PDF attachment. Proposers using the COA template for more than 10 senior project personnel will encounter proposal print preview issues. For further guidance there are Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for assistance. As you may remember, IOS had its own template in the IOS core solicitation. The old IOS template will no longer be accepted. Any submissions after January 29, 2018 will use the NSF template.
NOTE: Some information requested in prior versions of the PAPPG is no longer requested.
For system-related questions, please contact Fastlane User Support at 1-800-673-6188 or fastlane@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions regarding the content of the COA template should be directed to policy@nsf.gov.
Original post by NSF 2/13/18
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is pleased to announce that beginning on April 30, 2018, proposers will be able to prepare and submit full, research non-collaborative proposals in Research.gov. The initial release of this new Research.gov capability will run in parallel with existing FastLane proposal preparation and submission capabilities, so proposers can choose to prepare and submit full, research non-collaborative proposals in Research.gov or in FastLane starting on April 30, 2018.
Research.gov Proposal Preparation Site Preview
The other exciting news to share is that starting today, NSF is previewing the new Research.gov proposal preparation functionality to the research community to collect preliminary feedback and to provide the community an opportunity to acclimate to the new technology. The preview can be accessed by selecting the “Prepare & Submit Proposals” tab on the top navigation bar after signing in to Research.gov and then choosing “Prepare Proposal.” This preview will continue until 8:00PM EDT on April 27, 2018, and will allow any research community user with a FastLane or Research.gov account to sample the following proposal preparation features prior to the initial release on April 30, 2018:
· Initiate full, research non-collaborative proposals (other proposal types are planned for future releases);
· Add Principal Investigators (PIs), Co-PIs, Senior Personnel, and Other Authorized Users;
· Upload required proposal documents;
· Create budgets;
· Check compliance; and
· Enable Sponsored Project Officer (SPO)/Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) access for review.
Please be aware of the following important items as you test the new functionality during the preview period:
Feedback on the New Research.gov Proposal Preparation and Submission Site
Your feedback on the new Research.gov proposal preparation functionality during the preview period (February 26, 2018 through April 27, 2018) and on the full Research.gov proposal preparation and submission functionality after the initial release on April 30, 2018, is vital to NSF. The survey link will soon be available on the Research.gov “About Proposal Preparation & Submission Site” page. Feedback from the community and NSF staff will be used to implement enhancements and expand functionality incrementally, with the goal of eventually transitioning all proposal preparation and submission functionality from FastLane to Research.gov.
NSF’s goals for the new Research.gov proposal preparation and submission functionality are to:
NSF invites you to keep these goals in mind as you prepare and submit your feedback on the new functionality, so that they may improve the new Research.gov interface and develop additional available features.
For IT system-related questions, please contact the NSF Help Desk at 1-800-381-1532 or rgov@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions should be directed to policy@nsf.gov.
Original post by NSF 2/26/18
Establishing a process where you have students and postdocs establish an eRA Commons account at the time they start working on an NIH grant award can save you a lot of time and energy trying to track down people who may no longer be at your institution at the time of your Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) submission. You may even want to have them create an ORCID ID as well! (In case you missed it, read the November 2017 Open Mike blog post to learn more about eRA Commons and ORCID integration.)
Original post by NIH Staff 1/30/18
Effective January 29, 2018, NSF will implement changes in FastLane and Research.gov to support the following policy updates in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 18-1) and to run updated Budget Justification page limit automated compliance checks in FastLane:
Standard Collaborators and Other Affiliations Template Implementation:
Budget Justification Page Limitation Increase:
New “Substitute Negotiator” Associated Document for Change of Principal Investigator (PI) Requests:
New “Other Request” Type:
New Award Abstract Text:
Note about Proposal File Updates (PFU):
The automated compliance checks also apply when a PFU is performed on a proposal. The compliance checks will be run on all sections of the proposal, regardless of which section was updated during the PFU. Proposers should be aware that if a proposal was previously submitted successfully, a PFU performed on the proposal will be prevented from submission if the proposal does not comply with the compliance checks in effect at the time.
NSF encourages you to share this information with your colleagues. To learn about all the changes to the PAPPG (NSF 18-1), be sure to view the latest webinar.
For IT system-related questions, please contact FastLane User Support at 1-800-673-6188 or fastlane@nsf.gov. Policy-related questions should be directed to policy@nsf.gov.
original post by NSF 1.23.18
NIH’s Office of Extramural Research brings you two new “All About Grants” podcasts to ring in the new year. In “Why it’s so Important to Submit Applications Early” (mp3, transcript), Dr. Cathie Cooper, director of the Division of Receipt and Referral in the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review, talks about the importance of submitting application early due to changes in NIH’s policies and application forms for 2018.
In “Changes to the NIH Appendix Policy for 2018” (mp3, transcript), Dr. Cooper joins us again to talk about the NIH appendix policy and new limits on what can be included as appendices.
All About Grants podcast episodes are produced by the NIH Office of Extramural Research, and designed for investigators, fellows, students, research administrators, and others just curious about the application and award process. The podcast features NIH staff members who talk about the ins and outs of NIH funding, and provide insights on grant topics from those who live and breathe the information. Listen to more episodes via the All About Grants podcast page, through iTunes, or by using our RSS feed in your podcast app of choice.
originally posted by NIH on 12/28/17
With 2017 in the rearview mirror, Grants.gov pauses to look back on what was a significant year for federal grants. With important developments and growth in the grants community in 2017, this post takes note of key points worth remembering and helpful resources, not just from Grants.gov, but from some of you in the grants community.
This would not be a real grants ‘year in review’ for 2017 without starting with the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act). Coordinating across all federal award-making agencies and the diverse applicant communities to standardize and improve the quality and transparency of federal financial data? That’s big.
If you are completely unfamiliar with the DATA Act, welcome to the party—start with this basic update. You should also do a web search for training and updates about the DATA Act to hear from a variety of stakeholders on what it means for the grant community.
To get you thinking about possibilities in the future, HHS’ Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Grants and Acquisitions Policy and Accountability (OGAPA), Andrea Brandon, posed this question at the DATA Transparency conference in September this year, “Do we need [nonfederal entities] to actually complete an SF-424 or do we just need structured data sets that come through a particular portal?”
Over $700 billion in grants and cooperative agreements were awarded in FY 2017. The DATA Act gets another nod here, which led to the new beta USAspending.gov to improve the quality and transparency of federal spending data. If you are interested in more spending data, check out the USAspending.gov Agency Profiles and Spending Map.
As a note, that number does include Medicare and Medicaid funding in the form of formula grants, but there were thousands of discretionary funding opportunities posted on Grants.gov for which many of you applied for—and it is a competitive process.
Of course, we need to mention at least one grant-writing tip here—do not eliminate yourself from the competition by not checking that you have followed all the basic requirements.
Anecdotally, 2017 certainly seemed like one of the most prolific with regard to grant events and training resources available to the community.
While Grants.gov could just link to their own training videos, events calendar, or other resources (YSWIDT?), they want to recognize your awesome contributions to the community.
#GrantChat – Talk with fellow grant professionals on a range of topics relevant to your work. This is a great way to hear tips, share resources, and get to know your professional peers online.
Resources By You, For You – Here’s a sampling of grant resources for you to review: eCivis blog, Grant Professionals Association Resource Center, Grant Training Center, Grant Writer’s Blog, GrantSpace by Foundation Center, GrantStation Insights blog, Learn Peak Grantmaking, Management Concepts Applying for Federal Grants & Cooperative Agreements, National Grants Management Association Annual Grants Training, NIH Regional Seminar & Extramural Nexus blog, SmartGrants Blog, the bmtconsulting blog, The Grant Plant Resources, Thompson Grants Federal Grants Forum, or check out our Where to Find Free Online Resources for Federal Grant Applicants Part 1 and Part 2 for more.
Last January, Grants.gov shared high-level plans for 2017, and they are happy to say that they were able to stick to these plans. Admittedly, #1 and #3 from last year’s plan go hand-in-hand, but here’s a link to Grants.gov Workspace resources just in case you haven’t read about it yet.
They are proud to have received awards confirming the direction of the program. FedHealthIT 100 awarded John Enggren, the Grants.gov Program Manager, for developing Workspace and his efforts of “driving change and advancement in the Federal Health Information Technology and Consulting Market.” In June 2017, Enggren and the program also received recognition at the 2017 AFFIRM Leadership Awards Celebration for Workspace.
Original post by Grants.gov dated 1/2/2018
