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Prior Approval - 500K Approval

If you are an applicant planning to submit a grant application with $500,000 or more in direct costs in any one budget year (excluding consortium Facilities & Administrative costs (or indirect costs)), you are required to contact your program official (PO) and obtain approval from the funding agency six weeks prior to application submission. 

The PO initiates a 500k invitation to the principal investigator (PI), which opens up a 500K request in the Prior Approval module. The PI and the Notice of Award contact for the organization/application will receive an email notification of the invitation.

Either the PI or the signing official (SO) can use Prior Approval to search for, and respond to, a 500K request. The PI can add documentation to the request and route it to an SO, but only the SO can submit the request. 

Basic Task (step-by-step instructions)

Main Screenshots

Access Prior Approval from the Main menu/eRA logo in upper left of eRA Commons

Figure 1: Access Prior Approval from the Main menu/eRA logo in upper left of eRA Commons

On the Prior Approval landing page, the Request Type dropdown does NOT include 500k because recipients cannot initiate this type of request. This is because a 500K request can only be initiated by agency staff. Signing officials (SOs) or principal investigators (PIs) at the recipient organization use the search ability, shown above, to search for an existing 500k request that was initiated by the awarding agency.

Figure 2: On the Prior Approval landing page, the Request Type dropdown does NOT include 500k because recipients cannot initiate this type of request. This is because a 500K request can only be initiated by agency staff. Signing officials (SOs) or principal investigators (PIs) at the recipient organization use the search ability, shown above, to search for an existing 500k request that was initiated by the awarding agency.  

The 500K Modify Request screen in Prior Approval. 500K requests are initiated by agency staff, not by the recipient organization. Prior Approval lets recipients respond to (and submit documentation for) a 500K request that was initiated by the awarding agency.

Figure 3: The 500K Modify Request screen in Prior Approval. 500K requests are initiated by agency staff, not by the recipient organization. Prior Approval lets recipients respond to (and attach documentation for) a 500K request that was initiated by the awarding agency. PIs do not see the Submit button as only the SO can Submit. 

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