electronic Research Administration (eRA) Leadership
Inna Faenson,
Acting eRA Program Manager
eRA serves as the backbone of the NIH extramural research program. It provides the critical IT infrastructure to support policies and procedures that allow NIH to ensure scientific integrity, proper stewardship of funds and public accountability in awarding grants worldwide for biomedical research.
eRA is often at the crux of important changes in policy and procedures. Since fall 2009, eRA has been an integral part of a slew of initiatives with others in the Office of Extramural Research (OER), including implementation of the Early Stage Investigator requirements, making the transition from PureEdge software to Adobe for electronic grant applications, implementing the recommendations of the Enhancing Peer Review recommendations initiative, and accommodating many changes to process American Recovery and Reinvestment Acts (ARRA) grants. Through these high profile, trans-NIH initiatives, eRA has stood tall, working diligently to make OER efficient and effective.
Here are some facts that show the breadth and complexity of the eRA Program:
- About 65 eRA federal staff and a couple of hundred contractors are responsible for 27 different systems that manage extramural grants processing from receipt of grant applications to closeout and reporting
- The program manages about 30 terabytes of extramural data. (Note that one terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes.)
- eRA systems are used not only by NIH but also by its five partner OpDivs and agencies - the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA), and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Each of these organizations reimburse eRA for their use of the system.
eRA Organization Chart (PDF)
INQUIRIES
Please contact Inna Faenson, at faensoni@od.nih.gov if
- you are an agency looking to partner with eRA or
- you would like to provide ideas, suggestions, for future capabilities
Please contact the eRA Help Desk for help with your grants processing needs.
