Grant Applications/Proposals

Please contact your Grant Administrator  in the Research Operations Grants and Contracts Office.They will answer any questions you may have about submitting proposals through BMC. They will also assist Investigators and Research Administrators:

1. Obtain a Username and Password and train on the BMC electronic Proposal Development system, InfoEd.
2. Obtain the appropriate internal forms and Institutional information required for grant application
3. Coordinate a time line for proposal submission.  

Additional guidance outlining the requirements for Federal applications, can also be found through the BMC Grants and Contracts Office's Proposal Submission Guide and Checklist

Proposal Summary sheet  (required for all applications)

Conflict of Interest form(s) for key personnel, non- key personnel, and unpaid consultants (required for all new applications, and non- competing applications if there is a change in the previously reported conflict)

Conflict of interest forms should be filled out prior to grant submission through the BU Compliance Office's online system found here.  For all questions regarding Conflict of Interest please contact [email protected]

Letter of Intent (if subcontracts)

Please see the Space Matrix to find out through which Institution you should submit your application

Please review BMC Proposal Submission Policy  For Federal applications submitted electronically through InfoEd, the following time line should be honored:

You will need an InfoEd account in order to submit grants through our office. Contact [email protected] to have one setup. Please include the fallowing information when contacting RBIS:

• Full name
• Role in InfoEd (PI/administrator/restricted administrator/development)
• E-mail
• Department/Section
• Address
• Phone & fax numbers
• Title (optional)
• BU ID (for BU PI's)
• eRA Commons ID( for PI's , if available)

For a federal grant application you will need an eRA commons username affiliated with BMC. Contact your Grant Administrator to have one setup or to have BMC affiliated to an existing account. **This must be done at least 48 hours before the grant is submitted**

The Grant Administrator  assigned to assist with your application is department and section based

At a minimum, we require a Letter of Intent (LOI), scope of work, detailed budget, budget justification, and BMC internal paperwork. The prime institution may also request biosketches, resources/facilities pages, letters of support, etc. You should coordinate with your collaborators at the prime institution to determine exactly what they require prior to submitting the paperwork to the BMC grants office.

A new InfoEd entry should be completed for all grants prior to review and submission. Electronic grant applications to many federal agencies, including NIH, CDC, and AHRQ, should be developed using the SF424 (system to system) mechanism. For grant types that do not use the system to system mechanism, information should be entered through InfoEd using the "generic sponsors" option. Instructions for both can be found online or in the pre-award training manual. http://10.153.11.138/grants/nihcommons.html 

In the setup page:

The PI of the application must be selected here.

1. DO NOT copy applications from an existing proposal in InfoEd. Even if you are resubmitting a grant that was previously developed in InfoEd, all applications must be created new.
2. When initiating a system-to-system application in InfoEd to NIH, select National Institute of Health/DHHS as your sponsor. If you wish for your application to be assigned to a specific institute within NIH, you can indicate this in your cover letter
3. You must select a valid opportunity number
4. Make sure the primary department is selected under "PI Departments". You may need to add this manually. Do NOT change the "Associated Department". This is the PI's division. If this in incorrect, please contact todd.erceg@bmc.org to update.

6. Select "Budget by Total Project" as the budgeting model. It is easier to develop the budget using this scheme.

In the SF424 (R&R) page:

1. Todd Erceg should be selected as the Administrative Official and Authorized Representative. Click on the blank boxes and a drop down menu will appear. By selecting Todd, his information will automatically populate the boxes.

In the personnel page:

1. All key personnel/significant contributors must have their entire personal profiles filled out (including zip code).
2. Biosketches should be in the new NIH format with a personal statement.
   1. 15 publications MAX.
   2. No $ amounts or % effort should be listed on research support section.
   3. Biosketches are typically limited to 4 pages, but special funding opportunities may limit it to 2 pages. Review the sponsor guidelines to confirm.
   4. Certain fellowship/training applications require a different biosketch template for fellows/trainees. Review the guidelines for the specific fellowship to see if this applies to your application.
3. If you want to include a biosketch for a consultant, add them as a significant contributor in the personnel section. Their consultant fee (if applicable) should still be listed under non-personnel costs in the budget page.
4. Make sure Pubmed Central IDs are included in the PI biosketch and references section for any publications that are NIH-funded and authored/co- authored by the PI.
5. Make sure that eRA Commons username is listed in the Credential box for the PI. The application will not be accepted by NIH/AHRQ/CDC if this is omitted or incorrect.

In the budget page:

1. Modular grants should have a budget justification for personnel only.
2. In applications using non-modular budgets, the subcontract justification should be added to the BMC justification and uploaded as one document. In applications using modular budgets, the subcontract justification should be uploaded as a separate document in the Consortium Justification.

**Specific instructions and more detailed information for system to system applications can be found in Appendix B of the PreAward training manual as well as the BMC internal grants website:  http://10.153.11.138/grants/nihcommons.html

1. Generic sponsor applications in InfoEd are a way to submit all other application types to the BMC grants office for review and approval. This includes, but is not limited to, foundation grants, federal electronic applications that can not be submitted system to system, paper applications, subcontract applications, etc.

If you have any questions whether an application should be developed using the system to system mechanism or generic sponsors, please contract your PDS .

2. Components of the application must be uploaded in the Internal Documents tab for us to retrieve and review.

3. The budget tab of the generic sponsor template must be completed even if a separate budget page is uploaded in the Internal Documents tab.

4. When completing an Adobe package for federal applications that cannot be submitted system to system thru InfoEd, do not include spaces, numbers, or special characters in attachment filenames. Using underscores is OK. Also, all attachments in Adobe grants package must be converted to PDFs.

5. If BMC is a subcontract, the proposal sponsor should be set as the prime institution (eg. Children's Hospital) in InfoEd. The originating sponsor (e.g. NIH) can be set on the setup questions page, once the question "Is this a flow through Project?" is marked "yes".

• **Specific instructions and more detailed information for generic sponsor applications can be found in Appendix C of the Pre Award training manual

Boston Medical Center does not currently have a policy limiting who can be PI or apply for a grant, however approval and support is required from the applicable department/division.

All requests for pre-award post submission material must be reviewed by the Grants and Contracts Office prior to submission to the sponsor. At times the sponsor may directly contact the PI and Research Administrator. In order to better serve the research community we request that this information be forwarded to our office. We will be able to provide support and guidance on post-submission documentation prior to submission to the sponsor.