The Office of Research Administration (ORA) in partnership with the School of Medicine, Office of Grants and Contracts (SOM OG&C) will allow for proposal submission via NIH ASSIST in addition to System-to-System (S2S) submissions via Sparta. With this functionality and noting Sparta does not interface directly with the ASSIST system, the following new process requirements are being implemented in regards to routing of the proposals and documentation required.
Following are the steps to use when routing a proposal that uses NIH ASSIST in lieu of S2S submissions via Sparta:
1. Complete the proposal in NIH ASSIST
You will need to log into NIH's ASSIST system in order to prepare the SF424 proposal package. Upon completion, the SF424 proposal package must be fully validated in ASSIST and ready for submission prior to routing the SF424 proposal package to the appropriate Pre-Award office for submission to NIH.
2. Prepare the proposal in Sparta
A Funding Proposal (FP) will need to be created in Sparta with the following information:
- Question 9 on the FP-how will this be submitted to the sponsor?
Electronic non-grants.gov submission must be selected
- Section 1.5 Non-Grants.gov Opportunity Details
List the NIH Funding Opportunity Number
List the ASSIST Application Identifier
- Attach a copy of the proposal in PDF which is generated from ASSIST
- Budget
The Personnel grid, Section 3.0 Personnel Costs, must be completed for CWRU personnel.
Subawards should be handled per ORA's guide: https://research.case.edu/Prop_Dev/Sparta/SpartaReminders.cfm
Equipment and Patient Care budget items need to be identified in Section 3.4 General Costs.
Remaining non-salary budget items can be included as a "bottom-line" budget in Section 3.4 General Costs.
3. Route the proposal
- The Sparta FP must be fully routed to the appropriate Pre-Award Office prior to the ASSIST proposal being submitted.
- The ASSIST proposal must be fully validated and ready for submission when released to the appropriate Pre-Award Office concurrently with the Sparta Proposal.
Help with ASSIST System
ASSIST is an NIH system, Department Administrators and Principal Investigators will need to contact NIH's eRA Commons Helpdesk directly for any questions related to ASSIST.
Helpful Points to Consider
If you have not yet done an ASSIST proposal it is strongly recommended to watch the tutorial/reading the user guide prior to starting as there is less flexibility to move cores/projects, etc. around in the proposal once inputted into the system: http://era.nih.gov/era_training/assist.cfm.