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 principal investigators (PIs) and signing officials (SOs) respond to a 500K prior approval invitations from the granting agency or to withdraw from 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 grant change request for FDA grants only.

Signing officials (SO) and program directors/principal investigators (PD/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:

1. Log in to eRA Commons; see Logging into eRA Commons.
2. Navigate to the Prior Approval module.

You see a list of prior requests; see Viewing and Initiating Requests for PI- and SO-specific Prior Approval landing pages, along with tasks available to the PI or SO.