The NIH continues towards its goal of a paperless grants process through the elimination of the following notifications which are currently sent in hard copy: Summary Statements and Peer Review Outcome Letters. Instead, the agency is requesting that investigators use the eRA Commons, a Web interface where NIH and the applicant organizations are able to conduct extramural research administration business electronically.

The NIH encourages institutions and their investigators to register in the Commons as soon as possible. To do so, email Julie O’Connor of Wayne State University’s OVPR (julie.oconnor@wayne.edu) with the following information:

- Your full name
- Your preferred email address
- An indication of whether or not you have received NIH support in the past, or participated in an NIH electronic review process.

The following resources for the eRA Commons may also be of assistance in the process:

Home Page for registration and updates: https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/
Frequently Asked Questions: https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/faq.jsp
Commons Helpdesk at 1-866-504-9552 or via e-mail at commons@od.nih.gov

In addition to complying with a Congressional mandate to move from paper-based to electronic systems, these new procedures will also improve consistency and timeliness of communication between NIH, investigators, and institutions during the grant application process.

Over the next two grant review cycles, the NIH will discontinue mailing the following two kinds of documents:

Summary Statements:
Beginning October 1, 2005, NIH will no longer send hard copies of the Summary Statements to Principal Investigators (PIs) and Individual Fellows Applicants. Summary Statements are accessible electronically to PIs and Fellows in the eRA Commons within approximately 8 weeks of the Scientific Review Group (SRG) meeting.

Review Outcome “Mailers”:
Beginning February 1, 2006, the NIH will no longer send hard copies of the notification letter (also known as a “mailer”) to PIs and Fellows regarding the review outcome of an application by the SRG. When the SRG rosters and meeting dates become available, they may be accessed through http://www.csr.nih.gov/Committees/rosterindex.asp (Center for Scientific Review [CSR] reviews) or http://era.nih.gov/roster/ (Institute/Center reviews). Scores will be posted in the eRA Commons approximately 5 working days after the SRG meeting.

At this time, the NIH will continue to send assignment and change of assignment mailers. However, this information is also accessible on the eRA Commons.