Testing the waters, then jumping in the Adobe pool

Testing the waters, then jumping in the Adobe pool

Fourteen Federal agencies have already jumped into the Adobe Acrobat pool and collectively posted more than 100 Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) with Adobe packages. Although these Adobe packages do not use the SF424 (R&R) form set, their introduction shows progress in the transition to Adobe and begins to exercise the new Grants.gov 2007 system that will be used for all SF424 form families. Grants.gov is currently working on revisions to the SF424 (R&R) forms that are needed before posting Adobe packages.

NIH is scheduled to complete testing of the revised forms in early 2008 and plans to test the Adobe waters with a few production FOAs in the spring. The large, standing submission dates for February and March 2008 will use PureEdge as previously indicated. However, if all goes well with the initial NIH FOAs using the Adobe packages, a full transition to Adobe will quickly follow. Grants.gov is encouraging agencies to complete their transitions to the new Adobe forms by early summer. NIH fully supports Grants.gov’s transition to Adobe and, as long as the forms and systems perform correctly, NIH will make every effort to meet the summer transition target.

What can you do to prepare? Adobe Reader version 8.1.1 will be needed to complete and submit the new Adobe forms. Everyone who needs to work with the forms must have this specific version of the Adobe viewer. The Grants.gov site has links to the viewer download and system requirements on the Apply for Grants page at http://www.grants.gov/applicants/apply_for_grants.jsp.

NIH offers this perspective…the transition to Adobe-based forms is a change in the tool used for the Grants.gov’s forms-based solution. With Adobe, the same SF424 (R&R) form set will be used along with the same guidelines for electronic application content and submission. The big transition from the paper PHS 398 to the electronic SF424 (R&R) through Grants.gov has already been made. NIH is still working with Grants.gov on the full transition to Adobe and will keep everyone posted through the listservs and NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts.

Source: NIH eSubmission, December 18, 2007.