Grants.gov was developed in response to a Congressional mandate and is
not the brainchild of NIH or any other single agency.

The Office of Management and Budget issued a Notice related to the
"Grants Streamlining Activities under PL 106-107, Federal Financial
Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999" - here is the link.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg/preamble2.html

It proposed "a standard format for federal agencies in announcing
discretionary grant and cooperative agreement funding opportunities"

And thus, G.g was born.  I think the main problem stems from each agency
trying to fit it's own requirements into the G.g format and still get
the information they need.

Another example of government simplifying.

-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On
Behalf Of Charlie Hathaway
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 11:00 AM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] An open complaint about HHS electronic
application processes

I do NOT concur.  I disagree that the new system was established to
simplify things.  And I think your complaints about NIH are very
short-sighted.  Improvements in anything are often difficult to deal
with at first.  But NIH has done a very good job.

Focus on other federal agencies without the NIH Commons-type
capabilities, and then I will sign on.

Charlie

> 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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 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.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================

======================================================================
 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.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================