Here at Penn, we also use S2S to submit a growing number of proposals to NSF via Grants.gov. While initially NSF wasn’t terribly supportive, they have really come a long way in this process, as Jennifer has noted. They have particularly been very responsive when they occasionally forget to post an FOA at Grants.gov. We can now actually talk to quite a few people who not only know what Grants.gov is, they also know what S2S is! We were even directly contacted by NSF technical staff when they realized there was a problem in our code that prevented S2S submissions from automatically moving into FastLane. They helped our vendor work through the problem. We rarely have a proposal rejected for any reason, either at Grants.gov or at FastLane, and the occasional warning can usually be handled via the update module. Proposals move quickly and smoothly through the validation and insertion processes, usually completed within an hour or so by NSF. We’re using InfoEd.

I second everything that Jennifer has said below, but that aside, it is difficult to know how to proceed with any submission at this point, even though we can submit for now to Grants.gov. At least preparing as much as possible in advance of a re-opening date by possibly choosing to use GdG may ease a lot of angst with a huge workload once everyone is up and running again.

n Evelyn

Evelyn J. Ford

University of Pennsylvania
Associate Director, Office of Research Services
Team Leader, PennERA Group
Franklin Building P221
Philadelphia PA 19104
(: 215.898.6156 *: xxxxxx@upenn.edu
:: ORS Home Page http://www.upenn.edu/researchservices/

From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] On Behalf Of Quinn, Jennifer
Sent: Thursday, October 03, 2013 10:32 AM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Applying to NSF using Grants.gov

Hi,

I would like to share some insight and experience from a school who values and relies on using Grants.gov to submit to Fastlane. We use a System-to-System (S2S) enterprise for all our submissions to Federal Agencies, including almost all of our NSF applications with only a few exceptions (i.e. collaborative proposals). This is very important to us for it has streamlined our proposal submission & review processes. We feel strongly that it is still very important for the research community to foster agencies to comply with Grants.gov submissions to continue support of the various S2S applications that are used.

The technical team at NSF has been extremely responsive and supportive in using Grants.gov to submit to Fastlane and have taken additional programming actions with Fastlane to make sure it can handle the intricacies of Grants.gov submissions. In addition, they clearly document their specific validations so that we were able to replicate those in our S2S system, Coeus, so that the majority of our NSF submissions via Grants.gov are warning / error free. We are very grateful for NSF's support in this.

Best,
Jennifer

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Spires, Michael <xxxxxx@si.edu> wrote:

The bigger question is why you would want to.

1. No one is at NSF to receive the proposals anyway.

2. You don’t know how long NSF is going to be shut down. (The Washington Post says the average guess for how long the shutdown will last is at about 2 weeks right now, but it could end tomorrow, or not until January.)

3. They’ll move any affected deadlines anyway.

4. I’ve heard from many program staff at NSF that submitting proposals to them through Grants.gov, while it’s allowed because they have to do it that way, is by no means recommended. Their system is FastLane, and that’s the proposal version that’s definitive. Grants.gov doesn’t do the same kind of compliance checks (or to the same level) that FastLane does. Even if Grants.gov says the submission’s OK, it could still get returned without review (or, in the new model, “proposal not accepted”) because of a compliance issue the Grants.gov review missed.

Michael Spires

Proposal Development Specialist

Office of Sponsored Projects

Smithsonian Institution

Mail: MRC 1205, P. O. Box 37012

Washington, DC 20013-7012

Voice: (202) 633-7436

Mobile: (202) 251-4317

Main office: (202) 633-7110

Fax: (202) 633-7119

http://prism.si.edu/osp/FundingSources/ProposalDevelopment/PropDev.html

Tell Us How We’re Doing! Your feedback is anonymous.

From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] On Behalf Of Trish Brock
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 12:59
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Applying to NSF using Grants.gov

So then, is there anyone who uses grants.gov for NSF frequently enough that they have a saved version of those program and division codes? Has anyone just memorized them?

I tried to use the google cache to get to the list but I can't make it work. Looking back at some previous proposals we have submitted and I see that division, program and funds codes have been consistent across our applications for a given solicitation across multiple years.

Gina, thanks so much for giving the grants.gov application a try and sharing with us.

Trish Brock, CPRA
***************************
Grants Analyst
Grants Development Office
Cal Poly, Bldg 38, Room 152
805-756-1450
***************************

From: "Gina I Betcher" <xxxxxx@ECU.EDU>
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 6:37:11 AM
Subject: [RESADM-L] Applying to NSF using Grants.gov

About applying to NSF using Grants.gov

I’m as guilty as anyone else who is in a position of seeing to it that grant applications are submitted in advance of program deadlines, and I am guiltier of finding ways around things though never to dodge a requirement. So, important deadlines are posed for example for October 10 and I say “important” because that is the deadline for the Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant; therefore, likely, a first exposure to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for doctoral student researchers. Trying to lend some smoke to the mirror to this shutdown, I prepared one Grants.gov package in prep for one of three to go forward (I would get back to those later). I was able to do this because I started real early yesterday, October 1. By mid-morning, I experienced trouble.

Required details (and if you’re reading down to here, you’re reading to the purpose of my writing here), which must be entered into the Grants.gov application to the NSF, are the Division Code and the Program Code. These are details entered on the last page of the application (be sure to save the application in advance of selecting the hot link to the list of those details). Clincher is the link is dead. No matter the type of program, there is no completing a grants.gov application for the NSF without inputting the Division Code and/or the Program Code.

Gina Betcher, MFA

Grants Program Specialist

Thomas Harriot College of Arts & Sciences

East Carolina University

2303 Bate Building

Greenville, NC 27858-4353

252-737-4389

====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)

A link directly to helpful tips: http://tinyurl.com/resadm-l-help ======================================================================

====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)

A link directly to helpful tips: http://tinyurl.com/resadm-l-help ======================================================================

--
Jennifer L. Quinn | Research Services Manager
Office of Sponsored Projects
Brown University
Hours: 8:30 to 4:30
401-863-3310

A link directly to helpful tips: http://tinyurl.com/resadm-l-help ======================================================================