NIH, NSF Move Ahead Slowly On Electronic Submissions

New joint effort doesn't erase differences in how the two agencies view the long-term impact of getting proposals on the wire WASHINGTON -- The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have teamed up to study how the government might develop a system for scientists to submit their grant applications via modem. University grants administrators predict that such submissions are inevitable, and speculate about the possibility of a single application for all federal grants

Written byJeffrey Mervis

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New joint effort doesn't erase differences in how the two agencies view the long-term impact of getting proposals on the wire

WASHINGTON -- The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have teamed up to study how the government might develop a system for scientists to submit their grant applications via modem. University grants administrators predict that such submissions are inevitable, and speculate about the possibility of a single application for all federal grants. But the track records of the two agencies suggest that an electronic future is a long way off.

"My goal is to provide a tool that supplies the NIH with applicant data in a much more useful form than now exists," says John Mathis, assistant to the chief of the referral and review branch of NIH's Division of Research Grants, who has been given the job of computerizing the applications process. "We're looking ahead ...

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