NIH Budget Status; Electronic Grant Submission

From: Berg, Jeremy (NIH/NIGMS) [E]
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 2:15 PM
To: NIGMS Grantees
Subject: NIH Budget Status; Electronic Grant Submission

Dear Colleague,

I am writing to give you a status report on our budget situation and to remind you about the NIH move toward electronic grant submission.

NIH is currently operating at the Fiscal Year 2005 appropriation level under the terms of a temporary funding authority called a continuing resolution. There is additional budget uncertainty related to potential adjustments for the costs of hurricane relief.

Recently, NIH announced its plans regarding the funding of noncompeting grants under the continuing resolution (see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-06-014.html). These grants are being awarded at up to 80% of their previously committed levels. Once a Fiscal Year 2006 budget has been appropriated, NIH will consider upward adjustments to these levels and revise awards accordingly.

NIH has started a transition toward electronic submission of all grant applications through the Grants.gov Web site that will be completed by the end of 2007. Applicants and their institutions will need to register for accounts on both the Grants.gov and eRA Commons Web sites. See http://grants.nih.gov/grants/ElectronicReceipt/ for instructions and a schedule of the transition by grant mechanisms. Note that complete registration can often take more than a month and you are encouraged to begin these processes well in advance of grant submission deadlines.

If you have any questions about these plans, I encourage you to contact your NIGMS program director or grants management specialist.

As always, feel free to send comments to me at bergj@mail.nih.gov.

Jeremy M. Berg
Director
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
bergj@mail.nih.gov