The Federal Government has declared FY 2007, which begins in October, as the year that all Federal Grants must be submitted electronically through Grants.gov. Grants.gov is the on-line grant application submission system used by all federal grant-making agencies to find funding opportunities and apply for them.

In order to help you prepare for these changes, Sponsored Program Administration (SPA) will be conducting Grants.gov Training beginning in August 2006 and currently has training dates through December 2006. Our plan is to initially offer training on a weekly basis in order to ramp up for the upcoming deadlines, then starting in January on a monthly basis.

Training sessions will be divided into two types of Grants.gov applications, SF424 and SF424 (R&R), and will be held in various locations on main campus and medical campus. Which session should you attend? You only need to attend one session. If the majority of your grants are NSF, NIH, CDC, AHRQ, DOE or NASA, plan to attend an SF424 (R&R) session. If you work with agencies such as DoJ, EPA, HRSA, or Dept of Education, sign up for an SF424 session.

The training topics will include Grants.gov functionality, the electronic submission process, SPA process and policies, and forms walkthrough. Anyone who is involved in any part of the proposal preparation process is encouraged to attend because the differences between completing and submitting a proposal in the electronic world and the paper world are significant. You should sign up for training, minimally, 2 months prior to the due date of the proposal.

Registration is NOW OPEN. SPA encourages you to register for the training you plan to attend. Please register online from SPA’s Electronic Submission Website at http://www.spa.wayne.edu/grants.html. Classes will be cancelled if registration is below 8 people approximately 1 week before the scheduled date.

If you have any questions, please email Carole Bach, Director, Pre-Award Services at cbach@wayne.edu or Liane Lehto at llehto@med.wayne.edu. You can also reach us at 577-1445.

–Carole Bach