Research Policies & Fees: Grants Processing
MEMORANDUM
TO: Medical School Research Community
FROM: Ray Ruddon, M.D., Ph.D.
Senior Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies
DATE: May 16, 2006
SUBJECT: Medical School Revised Grant Submission Deadline
Recently, DRDA described a new policy regarding the submission of grant proposals through the Grants.gov electronic system. The policy requires the proposal to arrive at DRDA, be reviewed, and launch in the Grants.gov system four days prior to the Grants.gov official deadline date. The DRDA service policy for other proposal types has not changed.
Going forward, in light of the Grants.gov deadline and to accommodate campus’ policy, we have modified our policy:
We request all proposals be submitted to the Medical School Grant Review & Analysis Office seven business days before the proposal is required to be sent to a sponsor (in paper mail or electronic launch format).
In this way, the Medical School policy is flexible and handles electronic Grants.gov, electronic non-Grants.gov, and paper submissions without having multiple policies in place. Examples are available of the policy applied to different proposals. In essence, for all non-Grants.gov proposals, the timeline remains the same at 7 business days before the sponsor required mail date/deadline. For Grants.gov proposals, this deadline will now be the equivalent of 10 full business days before the sponsor receipt date. (That is, delivered to the Medical School 7 business days before the launch date. Then per DRDA, the launch date is 4 business days before the sponsor receipt date.)
The Medical School supports DRDA’s new policy of proposal submission through Grants.gov and recognizes that with the new electronic system it is likely the extra time will be needed to successfully launch the application to the sponsor. We therefore are committed to facilitating the handling and review of these proposals as effectively as possible.
The Grants Office staff will work with you to address any compliance or resource issues that may arise. Meeting the requested timetable should give us sufficient time to review your proposal and enough time for delivery to DRDA by their requested date, regardless of proposal type. All faculty and departments are expected to meet the Medical School deadline.
We will continue to review all proposals received six business days or less before the launch/ submission date. These proposals will be processed in the order received, and reviewed as quickly as possible based on staff availability. Proposals received during this time period will be less likely to meet the DRDA deadline date for sending.
Our goal remains to ensure that every opportunity is available for faculty to complete the scientific portion of their grant application. We will review the "administrative shell" of the proposal in our office. The Medical School’s administrative shell includes all the sponsor’s form pages, as well as pages which require documentation of institutional commitments such as financial support, effort, or space on behalf of the principal investigator or co-investigators.
If there are any questions on this modification of policy, please contact Heather Offhaus in the Grant Review & Analysis Office (734-763-4272 or hmills@umich.edu).
