Contacting your Vanderbilt Grant Manager
A VU or VUMC Grant Manager is your primary institutional contact for submission requirements, internal deadlines, and routing. They manage the submission of your fellowship application to the NIH and will need to begin working with you weeks in advance of the NIH deadline to meet VU’s or VUMC’s internal deadlines. They will also assist you in obtaining institutional approvals if you apply for a foundation grant.
After you identify the fellowship you want to apply to, the next step is to contact your VU or VUMC Grant Manager. This step is essential for a smooth submission process.
- Contact your Vanderbilt or VUMC Grant Manager.
- Email your Grant Manager ~6-8 weeks before the fellowship application deadline. Include the funding agency, funding announcement number, and intended submission deadline. They are likely working with multiple students and postdocs for each application deadline, so don’t wait until the last minute to contact them.
- Your Grant Manager will provide you with checklists, internal deadlines, specific submission instructions, and reminders to ensure your application is submitted accurately and on time.
- Postdoctoral fellows will likely work with the same Grant Manager who their PI works with to submit grant applications. Check your department website for the name of the Grant Manager who works with postdocs or ask your PI for the name of their Grant Manager.
- Graduate students will work with a designated Grant Manager based on the PhD program they are in. See the “Fellowship Information” section of the BRET Student Financials website for the list of Grant Managers who work with graduate students.
- Set up required accounts. You will need to set up the following accounts to submit an NIH fellowship application. If you haven’t created these accounts yet, go ahead and do so. Instructions for creating an ORCID ID and linking it to your eRA Commons account can be found here.
- eRA Commons account – Required for NIH submissions. Your Grant Manager will need your username.
- ORCID ID – Used to link your publications and research contributions to your NIH profile. Your Grant Manager will need your ORCID ID number
- Complete the required RCR training. Both the NIH and Vanderbilt require fellowship applicants to complete training in the Responsible Conduct of Research. The NIH requires in-person training in RCR that can be completed by taking the RCR training hosted annually in late spring by the BRET office. Separately, Vanderbilt requires all federal grant applicants to complete RCR training before the grant submission deadline. Fortunately, the BRET-sponsored RCR training satisfies Vanderbilt’s RCR training requirement. If you are unable to take the BRET-sponsored RCR training prior to applying for your NRSA fellowship, the VU Office of Research Compliance offers an online CITI course in RCR. Note, however, that this short online CITI course alone does not satisfy NIH requirements, so plan to take the BRET-sponsored training, too.
- Complete the required training in Research Security. The Vanderbilt Office of Research Compliance & Integrity requires all federal grant applicants to complete Research Security training before submitting a grant application. The VU ORC offers an online CITI course that will satisfy Vanderbilt’s Research Security training requirements
- Organize your timeline and tasks. The BRET ASPIRE program has created a free NRSA grant planner Trello template to help graduate students and postdocs manage their grant deadlines and documents. It has links to instructions and additional guidelines for working with your Grant Manager. You can even add the due dates specified by your grants manager to your Trello board! More information about using and customizing the Trello board can be found here.
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