(no subject)
Jan. 7th, 2010 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaMy first research job was right out of college. When my boss submitted an NIH grant that year, I spent a few hours sitting on the floor by the copier with scissors, tape, and a ruler, shrinking down graphs and trying to fit them all on one page by literally copying and pasting. We were on the west coast, so the drop-dead date for proposal submission was 11pm the night before the due date. Then someone would drive the grant to the airport and get it on the midnight plane to DC.
When I first started working at the IHV, submitting an NIH grant meant making eleven copies of some forms and five copies of others. Everything had to be carefully collated and organized. The research plan would be photocopied onto "NIH continuation pages" and at the very end every page would be hand-numbered, and you'd fill out a table of contents by hand. Then you'd pack it up in a box and a courier would take it to NIH. About a week before that happened, you'd "route" the grant by circulating the budget, a little bit of the research plan, and some forms and things, and having someone walk it around to various offices on campus to have all the right people sign off on it.
When I submitted my first independent grant in 2007, there were no more printed copies couriered to NIH. Instead you uploaded to grants.gov. But you still routed the proposal by walking it around. Someone in the university Office of Research and Development checked all your signatures and then pressed a button on grants.gov to submit your grant.
Now my university has something called COEUS. I don't know what it stands for. But over the past few days I've been sending bits and pieces of grant to my grant administrator and she's been uploading them to COEUS. Last night I checked everything over online from home. She did the same this morning and e-mailed me about a correction or two. And then I pushed a little button that said "submit for approval."
COEUS checked everything to make sure it was in the proper formats for the university and for grants.gov. Then my grant started routing. COEUS displays a chain of eight separate "stops" at which someone will click a button to approve my grant. At the end of the chain, once the Office of Research and Development signs off on it, COEUS will automatically upload my grant to grants.gov, all its sections slotting neatly into the right places. Then grants.gov will relay my grant to NIH. I can sit at my desk and watch the approvals go through one by one.
No paper copy of my grant exists, and it's possible that no paper copy will ever exist. The Center for Scientific Review at NIH will electronically accept it and assign it to a study section. The Program Officer will assign it to reviewers, who can log in to the NIH Electronic Research Administration commons and read it there. That's also where I'll go to find out where my grant is in the process, what score it is eventually assigned, and whether I receive an award.
Oh hey, did I mention? I FINISHED MY GRANT.
When I first started working at the IHV, submitting an NIH grant meant making eleven copies of some forms and five copies of others. Everything had to be carefully collated and organized. The research plan would be photocopied onto "NIH continuation pages" and at the very end every page would be hand-numbered, and you'd fill out a table of contents by hand. Then you'd pack it up in a box and a courier would take it to NIH. About a week before that happened, you'd "route" the grant by circulating the budget, a little bit of the research plan, and some forms and things, and having someone walk it around to various offices on campus to have all the right people sign off on it.
When I submitted my first independent grant in 2007, there were no more printed copies couriered to NIH. Instead you uploaded to grants.gov. But you still routed the proposal by walking it around. Someone in the university Office of Research and Development checked all your signatures and then pressed a button on grants.gov to submit your grant.
Now my university has something called COEUS. I don't know what it stands for. But over the past few days I've been sending bits and pieces of grant to my grant administrator and she's been uploading them to COEUS. Last night I checked everything over online from home. She did the same this morning and e-mailed me about a correction or two. And then I pushed a little button that said "submit for approval."
COEUS checked everything to make sure it was in the proper formats for the university and for grants.gov. Then my grant started routing. COEUS displays a chain of eight separate "stops" at which someone will click a button to approve my grant. At the end of the chain, once the Office of Research and Development signs off on it, COEUS will automatically upload my grant to grants.gov, all its sections slotting neatly into the right places. Then grants.gov will relay my grant to NIH. I can sit at my desk and watch the approvals go through one by one.
No paper copy of my grant exists, and it's possible that no paper copy will ever exist. The Center for Scientific Review at NIH will electronically accept it and assign it to a study section. The Program Officer will assign it to reviewers, who can log in to the NIH Electronic Research Administration commons and read it there. That's also where I'll go to find out where my grant is in the process, what score it is eventually assigned, and whether I receive an award.
Oh hey, did I mention? I FINISHED MY GRANT.
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Date: 2010-01-07 03:47 pm (UTC)COEUS was originally developed at-and-for MIT. I don't know if it's just a name or if they tortured some poor acronym into shape; Coeus was the Titan of wisdom, and MIT uses a lot of Greek mythology-related names for things: Athena, Kerberos, Hesiod [the name service, of course], et al.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 03:47 pm (UTC)And watching it progress through all the sign-offs must be kinda reassuring too.
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Date: 2010-01-07 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:09 pm (UTC)"the embodiment of the celestial axis around which the heavens revolve."
seems appropriate!
go rivka! woooo!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:11 pm (UTC)Also, dearth of flying cars aside, isn't it great to live in the future?
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Date: 2010-01-07 04:12 pm (UTC)And it's nifty to read about the improvements over the years in the mechanics of the submission process.
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Date: 2010-01-07 04:19 pm (UTC)It's wonderful to see that the entire application process is now online. I remember talking with Alex Storrs at the STScI about an automated process quite similar to what you've described, and wishing we could implement it. That was back in 1994, when Alex and I were on the proposal "triage" team.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:25 pm (UTC)and
Neat!
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Date: 2010-01-07 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:35 pm (UTC)Modern processes are a vast improvement over the old ways.
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Date: 2010-01-07 04:38 pm (UTC)P.
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Date: 2010-01-07 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 11:01 pm (UTC)But yes. Congratulations on getting it all submitted :) Now best wishes for a positive and useful outcome.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 08:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 03:27 am (UTC)Second - I'm very fascinated by how the process has changed.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 10:38 pm (UTC)Grantitude
Date: 2010-01-16 07:41 pm (UTC)