This is very well stated/said. I concur 100% as I am in a similar situation re: size of campus and office staff. Thank you for expressing it.
Kathy Lomax
University of Wisconsin Platteville
Platteville WI 53818
-----Original Message-----
From: "Peterson, Nancy K" <xxxxxx@WINONA.EDU>
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:59:24 -0600
Subject: [RESADM-L] An open complaint about HHS electronic application processes
Winona State University is not a member of COGR. I represent a small,
one-and-a-half person mid-sized teaching-focused institution. Still I'm
dealing with the same problems that major research universities are
experiencing. If anyone could forward this message on to Council on
Government Relations (COGR) - or to any other individual or organization
you can think of that might be of help - feel free to do so.
-----------------------------------------
The Department of Health and Human Services is violating the basic
principle behind creating grants.gov.
First, NIH came up with their ERA Commons System. You must be
registered in the ERA system to apply. To apply, you submit an
application through grants.gov, then you have to login to the ERA
Commons to verify you have no warnings or errors that must be corrected.
If you do, you have to re-apply through grants.gov, then go to ERA to
check for warnings and errors (which may not be the ones you were
informed about previously), then you have to re-apply through
grants.gov, and so on and so on. Applying to NIH means research
administrators, authorizing officials and principal investigators all
have to learn two systems. (Oh, you also end up with a grants.gov
tracking number and a different ERA number.)
Now HRSA is requiring electronic submission and has an Electronic
Handbook (EHB) system. A recent deadline was an absolute nightmare.
Again, the authorizing official and principal investigator must be
registered with EHB. (Oh, by the way, anybody can register and
designate themselves to be an authorizing official.) Again, to apply,
you submit an application through grants.gov, then you have to login to
EHB to complete your application. I have a PI with multiple
registrations because he received poor instructions from the help desk
(on hold wait time for every call was 20-25 minutes) and there does not
appear to be any way to delete the extra ones. And of course, your
application has one tracking number for grants.gov and another one for
HRSA.
Using grants.gov was supposed to simplify things, because applicants
would use one application system and not have to learn separate ones.
With HHS, we're using grants.gov and needing to register and learn
different electronic systems for each funding source within the
department...systems that are incredibly un-user-friendly and have
woefully inadequate support services.
As I said, HHS is violating the basic principle behind having grants.gov
in the first place. All they are doing is adding on a grants.gov
requirement in addition to each funding source's own application system.
It seems the result of the paperwork reduction act is an electric work
explosion. Any assistance you could provide to initiate changes in this
multiple application systems practice would be greatly appreciated.
-------------------------------------------------------
Nancy Kay Peterson, Director
Grants & Sponsored Projects (G&SP)
Winona State University
Somsen Hall 212
Winona, MN 55987
Phone: 507.457.5519
Fax: 507.457.5586
http://www.winona.edu/grants
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Kathryn Lomax - Director
Office of Sponsored Programs
321 Brigham
1 University Plaza
University of Wisconsin Platteville
Platteville WI 53818-3099
608-342-1456 Office
608-342-1232 Fax
xxxxxx@uwplatt.edu Email
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