eRA currently is working with grantee volunteers who are taking part in the first round of electronic submission of live, competitive applications. The eRA pilot, which coincides with NIH’s October and November receipt dates, accepted 15 applications from commercial vendors participating in the project. During FY2004, eRA will process an increasing number of e-applications for each cycle. Full production for simple, single-project applications is planned for the fall round of FY2005.

Response from pilot participants has been very enthusiastic. “Virginia Commonwealth University was delighted to have the opportunity to participate in the successful test of a pioneering system for electronic proposal data transmittal to NIH,” commented Herbert Chermside, director of Sponsored Programs Administration at VCU. According to Dr. Norman Altman, vice provost for Research at the University of Miami, e-applications offer a way for grantors and grantees to realize significant efficiencies. “…we can focus on our research instead of paperwork and optimize the return for our sponsors.”

In preparation for the pilot, eRA and participating institutions collaborated with eRA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awardees who are building tools to assist grantees with the creation and submission of electronic applications. The University of Connecticut Health Center, the University of Illinois, the University of Miami and Virginia Commonwealth University used a software solution developed by InfoEd International to submit applications for NIH’s October deadline. Working with two of its clients -- Children's Mercy Hospital and Oregon Research Institute -- Research and Management Systems (RAMS) successfully transmitted their competitive PHS 398 grant applications for the same due date. The University of Michigan used Cayuse’s GrantSlam product to submit its first electronic application. Penn State, the University of Massachusetts and St. Jude Children’s Hospital teamed with ERA Software Systems to make their submissions using the Grants Application and Management System. See article in this issue for more on eRA’s SBIR partnerships.

eRA also continues to upgrade internal systems to be able to route the electronic applications for grants administration without reverting to paper at any point. The  pilot in progress supports paperless processes for receipt and referral.

To transmit an electronic application, volunteers, in collaboration with a service provider (SBIR awardee), prepared and submitted a PHS 398. In the future, grantees will be able to download, complete and submit their 398’s through Grants.gov. Alternatively, institutions can choose to enable their own systems to meet the specifications of the CGAP interface. For these institutions, NIH will issue an information kit with sample code and details of the technology needed to communicate electronically with the eRA Exchange.

When the XML-formatted applications arrive at the NIH, they will be received by the eRA Exchange. The Exchange checks for viruses, validates the format, maps the XML to the eRA database, notifies the service provider or Grants.gov, and routes the application data to the eRA system. The Principal Investigator and Signing Official then examine and verify the application via the Commons Status interface. Status has been upgraded to provide a new inquiry function that allows submitters to track the progress of their electronic applications through the system. 

The NIH is overseeing the applications of all volunteer participants to eliminate the risk of missed deadlines and to protect applicants from any possible problems. The CGAP team is assisting applicant institutions and grantees with each step of the electronic submission.

The vision of Grants.gov and the NIH eRA CGAP project extends well beyond support for the receipt of electronic grant applications. The notion of implementing an end-to-end, electronic grants administration business process is at the heart of development efforts. Ultimately, all downstream grants transactions and notifications will occur electronically.

Both grantors and grantees will profit from the government-wide implementation of electronic grant applications. There will be an improvement in data quality and significant savings in paper, space, effort and time. The migration to e-applications is expected to shorten the waiting period from submission to award by more than two months. Specific benefits include:

1. Grantee interface only with his/her institution instead of with multiple systems.      
2. Support for outputs for submission to multiple agencies.     
3. Application validation prior to submission.     
4. Immediate confirmation of receipt and validation.     
5. All subsequent business transactions occur between eRA and the institution system.     
6. Ability to query and retrieve data from eRA as transactions, eliminating data discrepancies and transcription errors.     
7. Automated upload of award budget and terms.     
8. Grantee ability to view application status throughout the life cycle of the grant.

Following the fall pilot, NIH will gear up for the February 2004 cycle when eRA expects to invite more participants, expand the scope of functionality, and accept application data from additional sources. At that time, eRA may allow additional application types (the fall pilot is limited to R01 Type 1 and Type 2 simple projects with modular budgets) and begin issuing Notices of Grant Awards (NGAs) via transactions. eRA currently is seeking volunteers to participate in the next pilot.

In preparation for the production deployment of single-project electronic applications next fall, eRA strongly suggests that all grantee institutions register for the Commons and become familiar with its applications. At the recent annual meeting of the Society of Research Administrators (SRA) International in Pittsburgh, Dr. John McGowan, eRA project manager, urged institutions to enter the world of electronic grants. “If you’re not registering your PIs, they’re going to be registered for you” because NIH is using the Internet for peer reviews. Reviewers will become aware of the new electronic tools and will challenge their schools with “Why aren’t we using the eRA system?” Visit https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/ to learn how to enroll and use Commons interfaces.