Contract and Grant Administration – Assistance is provided to faculty and staff affiliated with SIU School of Medicine in reviewing grants for submission to external agencies, and review of contracts for the support of research. The office is responsible for assuring that institutional policies are followed on grants and contracts. Questions regarding funding policy or grant information can be addressed to Pam Helfert in the Office of the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs located at 801 N. Rutledge, 2nd Floor, Room 2077. Hours are 8:00 a.m to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Call 545-4549 or email phelfert@siumed.edu.

External Grant Submission - Policy established in 1995 requires all investigators provide the Office of the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs research grant proposals three full working days prior to the agency grant receipt deadline.

This submission policy enables ADRFA staff to provide increasingly detailed, and improved, reviews as well as facilitate with revisions that might be necessary prior to submitting the proposal to the granting agency. As funding for grants becomes increasingly competitive, the ADRFA office strives to make every effort to ensure that all non-scientific details in research proposals are adequately addressed. SIU School of Medicine faculty/staff are also encouraged to meet with ADRFA staff at least one week before their proposal is due at the funding agency.

What's New With NIH Grant Submission
NIH grantees, applicants, potential applicants: The National Institutes of Health will be transitioning all of its grant programs from paper to electronic submissions during the next 12 months or so. NIH applicants do not have to register with Grants.gov, which will be the starting point for electronic submissions. However, you must register with eRA Commons, the NIH system that allows applicants/grantees to electronically receive and transmit application and award information. If you wait until the last minute to register with NIH, it may be too late to submit a proposal that you've spent a month preparing. Register now to get an eRA user name and password by contacting Pam Helfert at ADRFA, 545-4549.

Grants.gov update: Over the next few months, all federal funding agencies will convert to the Grants.gov system for proposal submissions. Check our guidelines page and get familiar with the system now. Grants.gov's Customer Support page has lots of helpful resources, including a FAQs page, a tutorial, a training demonstration on how to complete an application package, and a user guide.

Researchers submitting proposals through Grants.gov should make sure they have downloaded the latest version of PureEdge Viewer by accessing http://www.grants.gov/DownloadViewer. You can also check to see if you have the latest version when you open an application package; a warning box will appear to inform you that will need to download this upgrade. Macintosh users: Grants.gov has adopted a Citrix Server for non-Windows users to access the PureEdge Application Packages without having to use Windows emulation software. Please visit Grants.gov to learn more.

Community of Science Community of Science is a Web service for scientists and scholars that SIU School of Medicine joined in 2001. After clicking on the COS link, for an overview of the general functions, click on the upper tab where it says "About COS." To actually get into the COS system, you have to establish a "workbench," which is your own personalized workstation that allows COS functions to work for you.

ERA Commons For the purposes of exchanging research grants administration information, the NIH provides the "ERA Commons". The Electronic Research Administration (ERA) Commons is a virtual meeting place where NIH extramural grantee organizations, grantees, and the public can receive and transmit information about the administration of biomedical and behavioral research.