During the next 12 months or so the process of submitting grant applications to federal agencies will undergo a profound change. In the end, every application to any agency will have to be submitted electronically through a common portal called grants.gov. This process is already required for many types of grants, and will affect most NIH grants by early 2007.

Grants.gov is a primitive and glitchy portal. In order to smooth the submission process, Hopkins has joined a consortium to continue development of a much more convenient portal called Coeus (named after one of the Greek Titans, god of intelligence). Coeus was originally created by MIT as an interface between users and grants.gov. Coeus will be available shortly for general use. I have spent an hour with it and found it quite easy and intuitive to use. But some training is required, especially for those entering the budget.

We anticipate MANY difficulties when grants.gov takes over. There will be delays and frustrations reminiscent of the early days of FASTLANE at the NSF. The extra government step added to verify the application before it reaches its final destination will also contribute to delays. However, the agencies will have much less flexibility about extending deadlines. If a proposal is delayed in grants.gov, tough nuts.

Investigators need to get their grant into the Sponsored Projects Office early.

We can only guarantee a successful submission if the following timetable is followed:

Budget, budget justification and abstract (same as now) at the office for signature 5 days ahead.
Full proposal ready for electronic submission 3 days before the deadline.

Our counterparts in Medicine and Public Health refuse proposals not at their Research Office by their internal deadline. KSAS will accept proposals after the 5 day internal deadline but cannot be held responsible if the sponsor’s deadline is missed or the proposal is not accepted due to errors. Early submission of electronic proposals to NIH (before the deadline) will also insure that the proposal can be corrected if there are errors.

Sincerely,

Eaton E. Lattman
Dean of Research and Graduate Education
Professor of Biophysics