Submission Options

There are several available options to prepare and submit your application, but not all options may be available for your organization. Check with your administrative officials before choosing how you will submit:

One of these potential options MUST be used to prepare required forms and submit your application.

Regardless of the option you use, your application will be:

  • Subject to the same registration requirements
  • Completed with the same data items
  • Routed through Grants.gov using the same application forms package
  • Validated against the same agency business rules
  • Assembled in a consistent format for review consideration
  • Tracked in eRA Commons
Option Key Features Considerations

ASSIST
NIH's web-based service for the preparation, submission and tracking of grant applications.

Learn more about preparing your application using ASSIST
 

 
  • Secure web-based data entry
  • Leverages existing eRA Commons credentials
  • Collaboration of multiple users
  • Control over application access (view vs. edit; budget vs. non-budget vs. all data; entire application vs. individual components in multi-project applications)
  • Pre-submission validation of many NIH and Grants.gov business rules
  • Pre-population of data from eRA Commons personal and institutional profiles
  • Ability to pull study information from ClinicalTrials.gov
  • Ability to import subaward budget data from Grants.gov forms prepared offline
  • Ability to copy application data from a previously prepared application (best effort provided when copying between different form versions)
  • Pre-submission print/preview of application in NIH format
  • Submission status tracking for both Grants.gov and eRA Commons within a single system
  • Integrated NIH messaging (applicant tips, system alerts)
  • All users must have eRA Commons accounts
  • Supports all NIH single and multi-project grant applications
  • Supports a limited set of funding agencies (NIH, AHRQ, CDC, FDA, SAMHSA, VA)
  • Organizations with system-to-system solutions in place may prefer those solutions be used to take advantage of integration with other internal systems and reduce duplicate data entry

Institutional Solutions
(System-to-System, S2S)

Institution’s own system to prepare and submit application data to Grants.gov complying with all application requirements.
  • Features vary by solution
  • Some integrate with institutional databases and grant systems
  • Some provide pre-submission verification of agency business rules
  • Some provide pre-submission preview of assembled application image in agency format
  • Some provide eRA Commons application status information
  • Can require substantial institutional investment 
  • Consult with your institutional officials to determine availability

Grants.gov Workspace

A shared, online environment managed by Grants.gov where multiple users may simultaneously work on different forms within an application package.

Learn more about preparing your application using Grants.gov Workspace
  • Online environment to manage the individual forms in an application package
  • Individual forms can be downloaded and completed by different users
  • Online data entry option now available for most forms
  • Option to check application against NIH business rules prior to submission
  • Option to preview application in NIH format
  • Individual forms can be reused for other opportunities
  • Entire application can be copied to different application package
  • NOT available for NIH multi-project applications
  • Supports all agencies who post on Grants.gov
  • Must login to multiple systems to track application status (Grants.gov and eRA Commons)
  • NIH has no visibility to issues encountered in Workspace
    • Applicants must provide detailed documentation of good faith submission attempts to be considered under the system issues policy

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      This page last updated on: September 4, 2024
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