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NIH eRA Items of Interest — January 2020

Hello all and Happy New Year!  We hope that the start of 2020 is finding everyone well.

Cloud Migration

We want to let you know about a very important change that will be coming to eRA later this spring. Specifically, eRA modules and data will be migrated to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.  What does this mean for you?

From 8 a.m. ET on Friday, April 17 to 8 p.m. ET on Monday, April 20 the eRA system will be unavailable. This effort will affect all the eRA modules (eRA Commons, ASSIST, IAR, iEdison, etc.) and all informational websites (era.nih.gov, etc.). 

Any affected due dates will be covered under NIH’s late application policy due to COVID-19, which allows all late applications submitted late for due dates between March 9, 2020, and May 1, 2020, to be accepted through May 1, 2020.

Grants.gov will continue processing applications during the migration window.  Applications received via Grants.gov will be put in a queue, and then eRA will process them on Monday night, April 20. The standard 2-day viewing window for successfully submitted applications will be applied.

These migration dates were carefully selected to reduce the impact on you. Standard submission due dates, continuous submission, small business due dates, review meetings, etc. were examined, and April 17 to April 20 is the single best time for this migration.

eRA has spent the last two years in extensive preparation to move to the AWS cloud and has already successfully migrated two non-production environments (including User Acceptance Testing, which migrated to the cloud in February 2019) without issue.

Cloud computing provides us with a number of advantages. These include improved security, reliability, and scalability of the system.

Look for additional communications with more detailed information coming in the future.

Looking Back…

It seems to us that 2019 just flew by.  We would like to highlight some of the exciting changes that occurred in 2019.

The big change came to the eRA website. We gave it a new look and feel with the key components of the redesign focused on intuitive navigation, improved accessibility (508 compliance), more convenient access to eRA Commons, ASSIST and Internet Assisted Review (IAR), while providing critical new and updated “how-to” information. A video summarizing the changes went along with the release.

And that was not the only video we released. We also released the following tutorials that you may find helpful. You can find these videos and more on the eRA Videos page.

We also released our first Twitter video.  You can see the steps for getting an ORCID ID and linking it to the eRA Commons Personal Profile here:

https://era.nih.gov/files/ORCID-TwitterVideo/index.html

And just released this month:

Of course, we did a lot more than just a few videos. But the videos seem to be a favorite resource as we have seen an increase of 30% in views over last year.  So, if you missed any of the ones from last year, here is your chance to check them out. And keep an eye out for more coming as we have a busy year ahead!

Regional Seminar

The NIH Regional Seminar will be held in Baltimore from Monday April 20 to Wednesday, April 22 at theRenaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel.

Once again we will have a variety of optional pre-seminar workshops (Monday, April 20) that include detailed information on topics like human subjects research protection, application preparation, post-application submission, intellectual property, iEdison, and more!  The workshops will work your brain, reduce any confusion, and improve your outlook on the grants process.

Following the optional workshop day, we have the 2-day seminar (April 21-22), where you’ll find an array of concurrent sessions, designed for administrators, researchers, grant writers, etc. These small bites of knowledge will satisfy the largest grants process appetite.  Choose from a wide selection of topics: from Advanced Administration to Human Subjects & Animal Research, to Rigor and Reproducibility.

Do you have a great idea, need some time to just hash out an idea, or do you have a question in dire need of an answer? In addition to everything above, you can sit down with one of our NIH experts and talk it over!  The always popular 1:1 Meet the Expert sessions will be available to give you that much deserved individual attention and support.

If the Spring 2020 NIH Regional Seminar location or dates don’t work for you, consider the next opportunity in Nashville TN – October 28-30, 2020.  Registration is opening soon so check for updates on the main NIH Regional Seminar web page. Seminar.  This video outlines all the advantages of attending the 2020 NIH Regional.

So register today to reserve your spot!