Electronic Initiatives

As in past years, there are numerous federal initiatives in the area of electronic research administration. Clearly federal agencies -- pushed in part by the requirements of Public Law 106-107 – have begun taken steps toward automating large areas of their research enterprise. We believe that by the end of 2003, all federal agencies will be in a position to accept electronic proposals and to do so in a variety of formats. MIT is well positioned in this regard, having already submitted test electronic proposals to ONR and NSF. NIH is aggressively working on this capability. We have been working extensively with NSF to find a way to allow research proposals to be created in a user-friendly standard Institute format and then uploaded to the current NSF FastLane system, until NSF is able to accept the government standard EDI 194 format.

In the meantime, however, some federal agencies have been developing and implementing individualized (and different) electronic initiatives, particularly with regard to proposal creation. Researchers and staff are aware of the NSF FastLane system for proposals and award management and some have become familiar with the Department of Energy’s Industry Interactive Procurement System (IIPS). Below are some of the more recent announcements and plans from some of the federal agencies as well as some general important reminders.

Deadline for Receipt of Proposals in OSP
MIT policy currently indicates that proposals should reach OSP at least 5 working days before the submission deadline to the proposed sponsor. Clearly, we do not always get the required five days, and have been able to process proposals and make deadlines even without the five-day turnaround time. We have noticed, however, that electronic submissions are generally late in coming to OSP since they can be submitted and received virtually instantaneously by sponsors. However, there are great risks in late submissions. We have seen instances where an agency’s server has experienced momentary disruption, where the format used for the submission to OSP was incompatible with the format used by the sponsor, where certain materials were not submitted in the proper format, or where an agency was so overloaded with proposals the system crashed, etc. In these instances it is important to have sufficient time before the deadline to deal with these types of emergencies. Also, please remember that even if an agency sets a midnight deadline, OSP is not routinely staffed until midnight and has no way to recognize proposals that arrive late in the evening for immediate processing. If you have an emergency that requires after hours processing, it is critical that your OSP representative be contacted during office hours.

NIH/NSF Application Font Size Requirements

MIT, like many other institutions, has experienced the rejection and/or return of proposals to NSF and NIH because font sizes were used that were not in accordance with agency guidelines. Therefore, please review the NIH or NSF requirements regarding font size before starting a grant application.

For NIH please see the section entitled "Format Specifications" in:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/section_1.html#b_general

For NSF please see the section entitled "Format of the Proposal" in:
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf022/nsf0202_2.html

Electronic Proposal Intiatives

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA had announced the pending expansion of their SYS-EYFUS system for proposal creation and submission, but in May 2002 announced the suspension of their electronic proposal plans awaiting the federal agency-wide development of a federal commons systems. They are, however, progressing with their plans for project reports to be submitted electronically.

Department of Energy
DOE’s Office of Science has just announced that as of October 1, 2002 it will be mandatory that all proposals are submitted electronically using DOE’s Industry Interactive Procurement System (IIPS). The Office of Science provides roughly 90% of DOE’s funding at MIT and is essentially the last DOE Office/Installation to adopt IIPS. Over the coming weeks we will provide details on how IIPS will be implemented at MIT.

Mary McGonagle (mam@mit.edu) and Paul Powell (ppowell@mit.edu) can provide further information or respond to questions.

Department of Defense Army Medical Research and Materials Command
The Department of Defense Army Medical Research & Materiel Command has issued their Program Announcements for FY02 and will be issuing their program announcements for FY03 in the next few months. These Announcements are available through the OSP Home Page under "Funding Opportunities." All proposals in response to these Announcements must be submitted electronically. Information about the specific submittal requirements appears below.

Principal Investigators needs to register with the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) eReceipt System at https://cdmrp.org/proposals/ in order to input their proposal information (referred to in previous years as the Proposal Cover Booklet). As part of that process, the PI will provide the name and email address of their OSP Representative, This will prompt the eReceipt System to automatically assign a password to the OSP Rep. and with notification that the submission process has begun. Internally the PI should prepare the proposal as one PDF file no larger than 20MB, and email it to their OSP Rep. who will then upload and submit the proposal. We would also like to point out that any letters of support and/or letters from collaborators must be signed and then scanned into the proposal before it is forwarded to OSP. Please note that the PI can only submit the proposal information. This system has been designed so that only the OSP Rep. can complete the submission process in the eReceipt System.

Last updated 10/16/03