Prior Approval Module

NIH Policy allows grantees a level of discretion when making changes to budgeting or grant-related activities. However, some changes require written prior approval.

The Prior Approval module lets program director/principal investigators (PD/PIs) and signing officials (SOs) respond to a 500K prior approval invitations from the granting agency or to withdraw a successfully submitted grant application that has not yet been awarded. In addition, SOs can also request a change of the PD/PI on a grant and request No Cost Extensions when the grant meets specific conditions. The SO can create a Carryover request, which is a process through which unobligated funds remaining at the end of the budget period may be carried forward to the next budget period. The Other Request type is limited to SOs who want to make a generic award change request for FDA or NIH awards only. Use of the Other Request type is up to the discretion of the Institute/Center (IC) for NIH use. NIH recipients subject to the NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy must use the DMS Request to submit revisions to their approved DMS plan.

SOs and PIs can access the Prior Approval module by logging into eRA Commons and then clicking Prior Approval in eRA Commons navigation.

NOTE: To initiate a $500K request, contact your program official, who can initiate it for you. (See the 500K section for more detail.) Policy: See section 2.3.7.2 under "Policies Affecting Applications"

To access the Prior Approval module:

See Viewing and Initiating Requests.