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NIH eRA Items of Interest - February 2018

The Delegations Are Coming, the Delegations Are Coming!

 

The Delegations Are Coming, the Delegations Are Coming!You may recall a quaint article, “Interim RPPR, No Tribble At All,” from February of last year, where I introduced the Interim RPPR (I-RPPR) and how it worked with the Final RPPR (F-RPPR), and Type 2 competing applications.

At the time, policy required that I-RPPR and F-RPPR work in the same manner as the old Final Progress Report (FPR). With the FPR, either the Signing Official (SO) or Principal Investigator (PI) could initiate and submit the report. There were no delegations needed since the FPR was an uploaded PDF, meaning anyone could develop and work on the report.

However, the I-RPPR and F-RPPR are submitted online through the Commons in the same format as the annual RPPR. As a result, the most common question we heard at the regional conferences in 2017 was “Can working on I-RPPR and/or F-RPPR be delegated?” We are pleased to announce that it is now possible to delegate working on I-RPPR and F-RPPR to anyone with the Assistant (ASST) role.

 
As with the old Final Progress Report, only the SO or PI are allowed to submit the I-RPPR and F-RPPR.
 
Also, I am pretty sure Albert Einstein never said the above line. But I do recall this one: “Don’t believe everything you read, even if it is on the internet.” – Albert Einstein

Maintenance On the Move

Maintenance On the Movemain·te·nance

/ˈmānt(ə)nəns,ˈmān(t)nəns/

noun

The process of maintaining or preserving someone or something, or the state of being maintained.
 
As you know, maintaining anything is important: a car, a hairstyle, the supply of available ice cream. All very important things to maintain! And no less important to maintain are the systems at eRA. So I want to share with you some information about our maintenance schedule.
 
Once a month eRA brings all of its systems offline to conduct routine maintenance. The maintenance is conducted on eRA databases, modules and websites to provide enhanced IT security and increased reliability. Starting in February, we will be moving this process from the customary first weekend of the month to the second weekend of the month.  The start time for all scheduled maintenances is 9 p.m. Saturday and concludes at 5 a.m. the next day, per our normal practice.
 
You can find the 2018 Maintenance Calendar on the eRA web site. Updates and additional details about planned maintenance are documented in this calendar as they become available.
 
And I’m off to Baskin-Robbins……
 

Welcome to My House…

 
Welcome to My House…May is not that far away! And this year our Regional Seminar is right here in my house… Washington, DC! 
 
As always there will be a wealth of information and opportunities for you and your colleagues to learn from NIH faculty and staff!  The Seminar starts on May 2 with our Pre-Seminar Workshops, followed on May 3 and 4 with the seminars, discussions and keynote speakers!
 
Need help convincing your boss you should attend?  Check out this wonderful video that outlines all the advantages of attending the 2018 NIH Regional Seminar.
 
With the many changes in policies for human subject and clinical trials, new forms, and the discontinuation of PDF form-based applications, can you really afford not to be here?  Registertoday before space is sold out!