Thanks for sharing!

Bonnie Kwit
Bonnie Kwit
Oakland University
500 O'Dowd Hall
xxxxxx@oakland.edu
(248) 370-4116

-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of
Johnson, Landy (Director of Grant Development)
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:31 PM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] Grants.Gov Missed Deadline Story

A request was made for scary stories of missed grants.gov deadlines (to
share with professors to urge punctuality).  I have never missed a deadline,
but I have a related story.  We recently submitted a proposal via grants.gov
and made a mistake with one of the attachments (we attached one item twice,
and omitted an item we were supposed to attach, but by coincidence the
twice-attached item contained much of the same info as the omitted item).
We discovered the mistake the day after submission, and contacted the agency
to ask if we could replace the omitted item.  They took a couple of days to
answer us, and the answer was no.  However, they agreed to review the
proposal "as received," so we are hopeful that we'll still be OK since the
required content is all there, though not presented as we had planned.

An apology was made to us regarding taking so long to give us a verdict, and
we were told it was because lengthy discussions had been held about a
proposal submitted 20 seconds after the grants.gov deadline.  We were told
that the 20-seconds-late proposal (from some other institution) would not be
reviewed at all, and that we were fortunate that at least ours would be
reviewed "as received" since it was on time.

The system certainly seems quite rigid, and professors need to know that,
despite how friendly they might feel with program officers, there is no room
for negotiation about timing of submission or about having the right
components.  I think there is still a bit of variation among agencies, but
the trend is for ever more strictness.

Landy

__________________________
Landy C. Johnson, MPA, Ph.D.
Director of Grant Development
Assumption College, Alumni Hall 024
500 Salisbury St.
Worcester, MA  01609-1296
(508)767-7666
xxxxxx@assumption.edu
http://www.assumption.edu/research

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