Use the Grants and Contract Office’s Application Submission Checklist, as well as Which Applications and Forms Do I Work on First?, the Sponsored Projects Manual and our Application Information to ensure you don't miss any steps. These guidelines incorporate relevant technical, administrative, budgetary, and compliance policies and procedures you’ll need to secure approval.

To help ensure a successful submission, we recommend that you create a timeline that includes the deadlines of the extramural funding agency, the GCO, and the departments that review and approve your application. This timeline should take the following three items fully into account:

1. Extramural Funding Agency
   This date is the starting point for determining GCO and departmental deadlines.
2. Grants and Contracts Office (GCO)
   The GCO must receive your complete and final proposal, including updated COI Disclosures in eDMS, as appropriate, by the deadlines below. Please remember that the GCO reviews proposals following approval by the relevant department(s). The deadline schedule below does not begin when the PI finalizes and submits the InfoEd application for routing.

You can find the instructions to check on the routing process once the PI submits using the GCO’s Application Submission Checklist. It’s important to allow adequate additional time for departmental approval, which occurs before the GCO receives your application. Depending on the timeframe for department approval, it may take several days after a PI submits for the application to arrive at the GCO.

• Federal applications: Five business days prior to agency deadline (by 11 am). Please note that the GCO agrees to replace the draft Specific Aims, Research Strategy and References sections for federal grant applications if needed. Significant changes may require the InfoEd application to be returned and go through re-routing.
• Federal non-competing continuations that do not require GCO submission of a progress report (for example: NSF, NASA, DOD): Three business days prior to the end of the current budget period.
• All new and non-competing non-federal applications (for example: foundations, other non-profit and RFA/RFP industry submissions, state and local gov’t): Three business days prior to extramural funding agency deadline by 11 am or end of current budget period, whichever occurs first.
• All other sponsored project applications that require yearly GCO submission (including a subset of Icahn School of Medicine and industry funded studies, please see the qualifying criteria): One business day prior to end of current budget period.

Please contact your GCO Grants Specialist with any questions.

3. Department(s)
   Please check with the appropriate administrator about the time needed to process your application and plan additional time accordingly, especially for an application that needs to be routed to more than one department. Determine if any key personnel or faculty are affiliated with other departments within Icahn and plan more time for the routing and approval process.

There are also several tools and resources available to assist you with your sponsored project application:

• Submission tools, which contain guidance documents, budget templates, submission checklists, and other resources specific-to-NIH sponsored projects.
• Sponsored project training and education provides training and educational resources to support compliance with institutional and extramural funding agency requirements.
• InfoEd Proposal Development Training Learn how to navigate InfoEd through modules covering new record setup, budget development, non-competing continuations, and Single Project Competitive Federal (System-to-System) application submissions. In Peak, go to Online Courses > Functional > Research. For more information, or to ask a question about this process, please open a ticket through Service Now.
• The Grant Application Resource Center provides investigators with tools and standardized application language to facilitate your preparation of grant applications.
• The Agreement Navigator Tool helps you find out how to route and obtain approvals for your agreements.
• Our Research Roadmap, which serves as a central hub for navigating the Mount Sinai research enterprise.

We use these software platforms to facilitate and manage the application submission and associated conflict of interest disclosure process.

• InfoEd: The InfoEd software program enables us to internally route and manage all research and sponsored project applications. We also use it to submit single project competitive NIH and other federally sponsored projects electronically to these agencies. We call these applications System-to-System Submissions, or S2S. We call all other applications Non-System-to-System Submissions, or non-S2S. For non-S2S applications, we use InfoEd for internal purposes only, not to submit the application to the extramural funding agency.
• eDMS - Conflict of Interest: eDMS is the electronic software system that is required for personnel to create and sign off on COI disclosures. Investigators update their COI “Disclosure Profile” on an annual basis. All investigators must answer “Research Trigger Questions,” which are inquiries for the GCO submission. The COI Disclosure profile is then updated with answers for a specific GCO submission.

Many extramural funding agencies require institutional information on their sponsored project application.

As a principal investigator (PI), you are fully in charge of your own research, with complete responsibility for the management of your grant(s). You need to pay attention to expenditures and allowable costs, as both your lab, and Mount Sinai as a whole, are governed by federal statutes.

SPA is responsible for the post-award administration of grants and contracts received by the Medical School. We offer grant management tools and a policies and procedures section through Sponsored Projects Finance to help you in your work.

You can typically start charging allowable costs to the grant once you have received your grant award.

Reporting requirements vary by agency and type of award. You can usually find them in the Notice of Award, the Sponsored Project Agreement, or in the online policy and procedure documents of the extramural funding agencies. Consult with your departmental Grants and Contracts Office (GCO) specialist if you have any questions.

You can also refer to the GCO guidelines on National Institutes of Health prior approval requirements, as well as re-budgeting policies specific to other federal agencies.

Changing a Principal Investigator

Procedures for changing the PI on a sponsored project are outlined in the GCO guidance document, Procedures for Changing the PI.          

In addition to the requirements described in the guidance document, investigators should determine whether the proposed change requires review or action by the Program for the Protection of Human Subjects or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and complete any applicable requirements.

Transferring a Sponsored Project to Another Institution

Policies and procedures for transferring a sponsored project to another institution vary by extramural funding agency. Investigators considering a transfer should consult their GCO Grants Specialist as early as possible to obtain guidance on agency specific requirements and the transfer process.

Submit your final report to the GCO using InfoEd. The GCO requires this report even if the project is sponsored by the Icahn School of Medicine or the funding agency does not expect a final report. Final report requirements can be found in the Notice of Award, Sponsored Project Agreement, or other policy and procedure documents from the extramural funding agency.

Sponsored Projects Finance will work with you and your department administrator to close the account.