Excerpt from the June 4, 2014 NIH eSubmission Items of Interest
Don’t Forget the eSubmission Basics
I had the privilege of spending some time last week with the eRA Commons Help Desk and posed the question - “If you could tell the applicant community one thing about application submission what would it be?” I was a bit surprised to hear the same key messages that we have been pushing for years. On the other hand, that’s why we consider them ‘the eSubmission basics’.
So, here’s a quick reminder…
- Watch out for form fields required by NIH that are not marked required on federal-wide forms (e.g. Credential for PD/PIs and Organization for all entries on R&R Sr/Key Person Profile form; primary site DUNS on Project/Performance Sites form).
- Use PDF format for all attachments. Follow PDF Guidelines.
- Submit early – days, not minutes – to allow time to correct unforeseen errors.
- Track your submission in eRA Commons. Email can be unreliable.
- Check your entire assembled application image in eRA Commons. If you can’t view it, we can’t review it!
- If federal system issues threaten your on-time submission you need to notify the help desk and follow the Guidelines for Applicants Experiencing System Issues.