Only an institution's Signing Officer or Administrative Official may obtain a Commons ID for each Principal Investigator. Contact your institution's Office of Sponsored Research to have the Signing Officer register you with NIH Commons. For questions about this process, please refer to the NIH Commons' FAQs.

The PI and SO must have their own Commons account. If the PI and SO is the same person, then two separate Commons accounts are needed. The PI must have a PI account and must also be affiliated in Commons with the applicant organization.

The applicant organization (not the PI) must register with Grants.gov. It is a one-time registration, so if your organization has already registered, there is no need to do so again. The registration process can take up to 2-4 weeks, so the applicant organization is strongly encouraged to apply early! Go here to register with Grants.gov.

All organizations applying for grants via Grants.gov using the SF 424 forms must complete a one time registration with Grants.gov. Principal Investigators do not need to register with Grants.gov. An Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) or Signing Official for the institution needs to complete this step. If you are unsure of whether your institution has an account with Grants.gov, contact your Office of Sponsored Research.

This process could take several weeks, so applicants are strongly encouraged to begin the registration process as early as possible. Follow the steps below in order to register with Grants.gov:

1. Obtain a Dun and Bradstreet (DUNS) Number online or by calling 1-866-705-5711.
2. Register with the Central Contractor Registry (CCR) online or by calling 1-888-227-2423.
   • During the registration process for CCR, an E-business Point of Contact (EBiz POC) is designated. The EBiz POC is given a password, the MPIN, which gives him/her the sole authority to designate Authorized Organizational Representatives (AORs) -- people who are able to submit grant applications on behalf of their organization.
3. The AOR(s) must register with the Credential Provider -- an outside agency that determines that someone is who they say they are. The Credential Provider for Grants.gov is Operational Research Consultants.
   • This organization's DUNS number is needed during this process.
   • This step provides the AOR with his/her username and password, which serve as their electronic signature.
     • The AOR must wait three business days from the time the organization is registered with CCR to obtain their username and password from the Credential Provider.
4. The AOR must register with Grants.gov.
   • During this process, the AOR must enter his/her username and password that was obtained after registering with the Credential Provider.
5. The EBiz POC must approve the AOR.
   • When the AOR registers with Grants.gov, an email is sent to the EBiz POC.
   • The EBiz POC must log into Grants.gov (in Internet Explorer) using the organization's DUNS number as the username and the MPIN as the password and then assign AOR privileges to the AOR by doing the following:
     • Click on "Manage Applicants"
     • Check the box next to the AOR's name
     • Move "Authorized Applicant" from the "Remaining Roles" box to the "Current Roles" box
     • Click "Continue"
   • After the EBiz POC approves the AOR, an email is sent to the AOR saying that they have been approved.
   • AORs can also log into the applicant home page on Grants.gov to check the approval status.

You should contact the Commons Help Desk by phone at 866-504-9552 or by email at commons@od.nih.gov Monday - Friday between the hours of 7 AM and 8 PM EST.

You should contact the Grants.gov Help Desk by phone at 800-518-4726 or by email at support@grants.gov Monday - Friday between the hours of 7 AM and 9 PM EST.

You do not need to upload any table of contents. The NIH will create a table of contents once the final PDF is rendered.

All uploaded files should be in PDF format. Many users may already have Adobe? Acrobat? and may have experience in doing document to PDF translation. Most newer versions of Microsoft? Word? also contain PDF translation functionality. If these are not available, PDF995 ( http://www.pdf995.com) is one company that offers free trial software for creating PDFs.

Currently there is no file size limit. However, larger files will take more time to upload. Please reduce images or compress larger files to shorten this file upload time.

Images can be reduced in size by the following methods:

• Reduce the size of the image in an imaging program
• Reduce the resolution (e.g., from 300 dpi to 150 dpi)
• Optimize and compress the PDF

When reducing the file size of your PDF, first check the size of the graphics that are used in the document. To ensure a smaller file size, we recommend graphics be reduced to 150 dpi and charts and graphs be reduced to 72 dpi.In Acrobat?, depending on what version you are currently using, there is usually a way to optimize or reduce the file size through the file menu. Check your user manual to determine the best method for file size reduction in your version of Acrobat?.

No. The NIH will add headers (PI name) and footers (page numbers) to the final PDF that is rendered. Please do not include headers and footers in the PDFs that you upload.

To convert from MS Word (2000 or later) to a PDF document, follow these steps:

1. Under File, choose Print.
2. Your Print options may include "Adobe PDF" as one of your printer choices.
3. The Word file will be converted to PDF using Adobe.

If your computer has the full version of Adobe Acrobat:

1. An Adobe icon may appear on the toolbar for MS Word. If so, click on this icon and Adobe will convert to PDF.
2. Alternatively, you may choose "Print to PDF" under the File menu.

**For optimal conversion, all graphics within the Word document should be in jpg format before converting to PDF.

To convert images, graphics, etc., from one graphical format (i.e., GIF, TIFF) to JPG, choose the "Save As" command in Adobe Photoshop and save the graphic as a JPG.

Using full version (Standard or Professional) of Adobe Acrobat 6.0/7.0

1. Open the pdf in the full version of Adobe Acrobat.
2. Select File then select Print from the top navigational menu.
3. Select 'Adobe PDF' as the printer.
4. Click on Properties to bring up the Adobe PDF document properties window.
   
   1. Choose 'letter' as the Adobe PDF page size.
   2. Un-check the 'Do not send fonts to Adobe PDF' option so that the fonts are sent.
   3. Click ok.
5. Click ok to print.
6. Give it a new filename.

If you receive a distiller error during this process it may be that the Adobe distiller is having difficulty converting the PDF because of embedded images in your file. We recommend that you download a third party PDF conversion tool such as CutePDF to complete the re-sizing: http://www.cutepdf.com/

Solution using CutePDF:

1. Open the pdf in the full version of Adobe Acrobat.
2. Select File then select Print from the top navigational menu.
3. Select 'CutePDF' as the printer.
4. Check the printer settings to make sure that the page size is set to 8.5x11.
5. Click ok to print.
6. Give it a new filename.

Using full version (Standard or Professional) of Adobe Acrobat 6.0/7.0

1. Open the pdf in the full version of Adobe Acrobat.
2. Select File then select Print from the top navigational menu.
3. Select 'Adobe PDF' as the printer.
4. Click on Properties to bring up the Adobe PDF document properties window.
5. Choose 'letter' as the Adobe PDF page size.
6. Un-check the 'Do not send fonts to Adobe PDF' option so that the fonts are sent.
7. Click ok.
8. Click ok to print.
9. Give it a new filename.

If you do not have an 'Adobe Printer' installed or are unable to complete the steps listed above we recommend that you try the solution below.

1. Right-click on your PDF and chose 'Open with'.
2. Select Preview and click OK.
3. Select File then select Print from the top navigational menu.
4. Click the down arrow next to your printer listings to expand the print settings.
5. Make sure that you select 'US Letter' for the paper size and choose Portrait for the orientation.
6. Make sure that the 'Automatically rotate each page' checkbox is selected and click the radio button for 'scale each page to fit paper.
7. Click PDF in the bottom left hand corner.
8. Choose 'Save as PDF' from the menu.
9. Enter a new filename for your PDF and click save.

Your grant must be received and validated by Grants.gov by 5 PM local time of the institution. If there are no errors, this usually occurs within a few minutes from the time you hit "submit". However, albeit rarely, this process can take up to 2 days. Therefore, users are strongly encouraged to submit early!

Yes, so long as your grant is received and validated by Grants.gov by 5 p.m. local time of the institution on the submission deadline day.

Yes. You can use the NIH Commons to check on the status of your proposal and learn where it is in the review process, what study section will be reviewing it, and other administrative data.

If the submission deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline is extended until the next business day.