Notice Number: NOT-OD-05-068

Key Dates
Release Date: August 19, 2005

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH), (http://www.nih.gov/)

The purpose of this notice is to provide information on the requirement for National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) grant applicants to submit applications online to the NIH through Grants.gov (http://www.grants.gov/) using the SF424 Research and Research Related (R&R) form as of the December 1, 2005, submission date (as announced in http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-067.html).

Innovative technologies and methodologies fuel progress in biomedical and behavioral research and represent an increasingly important area of the economy. The SBIR/STTR programs provide support for research and development (R&D) of new or improved technologies and methodologies that have the potential to succeed as commercial products. NIH is committed to ensuring that the transition to electronic submission and the new application forms will not impede the ability of organizations to apply for the small business opportunities during this time of transition.

NIH expects the small business solicitations to be available in grants.gov "Apply" by October 17, 2005. In the meantime, grantees may follow the current instructions in the NIH Omnibus Solicitation for SBIR/STTR for the Research Plan Sections which will remain the same in the new SF 424 (R&R) application.

Organizations are encouraged to prepare themselves for electronic submission of their application by completing registration in both Grants.gov and the NIH eRA Commons now.

Grants.gov Registration

Grants.gov requires a one-time registration. If an applicant organization has already completed Grants.gov registration for another Federal agency, they can skip this section and focus on the NIH eRA Commons registration steps noted below. For those applicant organizations still needing to register with Grants.gov, registration information can be found on the Grants.gov Get Started website (http://www.grants.gov/GetStarted). It can take some time to fully complete the registration process so applicant organizations are encouraged to start early .

NIH eRA Commons Registration

In addition to Grants.gov registration, applicant organizations planning on submitting applications to the NIH must also complete a one-time, two-step Commons registration.

1. Commons Registration for the Organization : Organizations may verify their current registration status by running the "List of Commons Registered Organizations" query found at: http://era.nih.gov/commons/. Organizations not yet registered can go to https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/registration/registrationInstructions.jsp for instructions. It generally takes several days to complete this registration process. This registration is independent of Grants.gov and may be done at any time.

2. Commons Registration for the Principal Investigator (PI): The individual designated as the PI on the application must also be registered in the Commons. The PI must hold a PI account and be affiliated with the applicant organization. This registration must be done by an organizational official or their delegate who is already registered in the Commons. It is recommended that this registration process be completed at least 2 weeks prior to the submittal date of any Grants.gov submission. To register PIs in the Commons, refer to the eRA Commons User Guide found at: http://era.nih.gov/commons/index.cfm.

Please direct questions regarding the Commons registration process to the NIH eRA Service Desk at phone: 301-402-7469/866-504-9552 (Toll Free); 301-451-5939 (TTY) business hours M-F 7am-8pm Eastern Standard Time.

Updates on the status of the transition to electronic submission and the new form set will be posted in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts and as a newsflash on the Small Business Funding Opportunity Website at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/sbir.htm.

Inquiries

For general information concerning the transition, please contact:

Grants Info:
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health
Phone: 301-945-7573
E-mail: GrantsInfo@nih.gov

SBIR/STTR specific inquiries should be directed to:

Kathleen Shino
Phone: (301) 435-2689
E-mail: shinok@mail.nih.gov

Weekly TOC for this Announcement
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