--- title: "Setting Up to Submit Federal Grants — Best Practices" --- # Setting Up to Submit Federal Grants *A practical setup guide for the accounts, identifiers, and team workflows you need before your first SBIR, STTR, or research-grant submission. Done up front, this saves your team two weeks of unblocking work the night a deadline is two days out.* > **Important:** This is a practical operations guide, not legal or compliance advice. Federal portals change UI, requirements, and policies frequently — verify deadlines and current rules with each agency before you submit. --- ## 1. Set up a grants distribution list / shared mailbox first Before you touch a single federal portal, set up a **shared mailbox** for grant correspondence. Every account you'll create — SAM.gov, Login.gov, ORCID, eRA Commons, agency portals, program-manager threads — sends confirmation emails, password resets, deadline notices, and reviewer correspondence to *one* email address. That address should be a shared inbox, not a personal account. Reasons: - the central archive doesn't live in one founder's personal inbox; - multiple team members can respond to program managers and help desks; - account recovery still works when someone is on vacation, mid-flight, or no longer with the company; - proposal-deadline week doesn't depend on whether one person checks their email at 11 p.m. **Outlook shared inboxes** are ideal — multiple users can send-as the same address with a unified archive. **Google Workspace Collaborative Inboxes** (via Groups) work too. A plain distribution list is acceptable as a starting point but doesn't keep a central archive — upgrade to a shared inbox as soon as you can. ### Example layout For a four-person submission team: | Role | Member | Why they're on the list | |---|---|---| | PI | Dr. Jimmy Jia | Scientific direction; lead correspondent for program managers | | Research team | Dr. Mariela Alfonzo | Technical contributions, co-authorship, follow-ups on technical questions | | Operations | Philip Risser | Logistics, compliance, deadline tracking, budget questions | | Other / catch-all | Evan Taylor | Backup access, archive owner, escalation | (Names above are Science Founders board members shown for illustration only — substitute your own team.) Address: **`grants@sciencefounders.org`** (use your own company's domain). > **Use this shared address as the contact email everywhere** — SAM.gov, Login.gov, ORCID admin, agency portals, proposal submissions. Personal email accounts on these systems will haunt you when someone leaves the team or transitions roles. The account-recovery flows on federal portals are slow and email-based — make sure the email survives staff changes. --- ## 2. SAM.gov — start here SAM.gov is the System for Award Management. **You cannot apply for a federal grant or contract without it.** Start the registration the day your entity is formed. - This is the system that issues your **UEI (Unique Entity Identifier)** — the federal government's identifier for your company. UEI replaced the old DUNS number in 2022. - The registration **takes a couple of weeks** because SAM.gov verifies you have a real physical address (paper mail goes back and forth). - **Virtual addresses / mailbox-style addresses have been a problem for approval since 2024.** Use a real street address. A residential lease address often works; a UPS Store or virtual-mailbox address often does not. - Once you have the UEI, **save it (and your CAGE code) into a folder you can access without logging into SAM.gov** — these systems go down for scheduled maintenance frequently, and you'll need to paste the UEI onto every proposal cover sheet. | Item | Where it comes from | Save offline | |---|---|---| | UEI | SAM.gov registration | ✓ | | CAGE code | Auto-issued after SAM.gov approval | ✓ | | Registration expiration | One year from issuance | Calendar reminder 60 days out | | SAM.gov account admin email | Your shared `grants@` mailbox | ✓ | --- ## 3. Login.gov — federated identity for the people who submit [Login.gov](https://login.gov) is a single federated login service across multiple federal grant systems. Setting it up early gives a single-sign-on identity that works on SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and several agency portals. - **Necessary for PIs and Ops** — the people who actually submit proposals and manage accounts — not every research team member. - Login.gov is identity-tied (multi-factor auth, real-name verification). Each PI and Ops user signs up under their **own name** with a personal-enough email to survive role changes. (The shared `grants@` mailbox can also receive Login.gov notifications via forwarding from each user's account, but the identity is the individual.) - Some agencies require Login.gov authentication; others use their own identity systems. Setting up Login.gov first keeps options open. --- ## 4. ORCID — every named team member needs one [ORCID](https://orcid.org) is both a federated login system and a research-activity platform. It's the single source of truth for an individual's publication record and grant track record — and federal grant systems (especially NSF and NIH) increasingly pull from it directly. - **Every research team member** with publications, OR who will appear as named senior / key personnel on a grant proposal, should have an ORCID iD and keep it current. - Use a **personal email** for the ORCID account (or list one as a backup). ORCID identities are designed to travel with the person across employers — they don't belong to the company. - Federated-login coverage is broad: Research.gov, NIH eRA Commons, SciENcv, and many publisher submission systems all accept ORCID as a verified identity. - Maintain the full CV in ORCID — education, employment, affiliations, funding history, publications. **SciENcv (next section) pulls directly from this**, so an up-to-date ORCID profile is the fastest way to a one-click BioSketch. > **Suggestion.** Use a personal email account as the primary contact on ORCID, with your company / institution email as a secondary. That way the account moves with you when affiliations change. --- ## 5. NIH SciENcv — auto-generate your BioSketch and Current & Pending [SciENcv](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sciencv/) (Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae) is an NCBI-hosted service that **automatically generates biographical sketches and certified Current & Pending (Other) Support forms for NSF, NIH, and the Department of Energy** from a maintained ORCID profile. Why this matters: most federal proposals require a BioSketch for each senior / key person, and a Current & Pending Support form for each PI. Both are tedious to fill in by hand, error-prone, and have to be re-done in slightly different formats for every proposal. SciENcv lets you maintain the data once in ORCID, then generate a properly formatted PDF on demand in the right agency template. - **Necessary for all research team members** who appear as senior / key personnel on a proposal. - SciENcv supports federated login with ORCID and with NSF Research.gov accounts. - Output formats include **NSF BioSketch, NSF Current & Pending Support, NIH BioSketch, DOE BioSketch, DOE Current & Pending (Other) Support, and IES BioSketch.** The workflow: 1. Each team member registers an ORCID iD. 2. Each team member maintains education, employment, and publications in ORCID month-to-month. 3. When a proposal is due, log into SciENcv, link ORCID, and generate the BioSketch and Current & Pending PDFs in the agency-specific format. 4. Attach to the proposal package. If you keep ORCID current, generating a BioSketch the day before a deadline takes minutes instead of hours. If you let ORCID go stale, you'll be hand-editing PDFs at 2 a.m. with the wrong template. --- ## 6. Grants.gov — designate your Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) [Grants.gov](https://www.grants.gov) is the cross-agency portal where many federal opportunities are listed and proposals are submitted. **Setting up Grants.gov correctly trips up almost every founder the first time**, because of how the roles work. > **⚠ Warning.** Creating a Grants.gov account does *not* automatically give you permission to submit proposals on behalf of your company. You also have to be explicitly designated as an **Authorized Organization Representative (AOR)** — and this is **not** the default. People create the account, try to submit, and find out they can't. How it actually works: 1. **EBiz POC.** When your company was registered on SAM.gov, one person was designated as the **E-Business Point of Contact (EBiz POC)**. That role lives in SAM.gov and is the gatekeeper for Grants.gov — only the EBiz POC can approve other team members as AORs. 2. **Individual account.** Each PI, administrator, or other person who will submit on Grants.gov creates their own individual Grants.gov account. 3. **Affiliate with your organization.** During account setup, the individual selects your organization (looked up by UEI). They're added as an "Applicant" with **no submission permissions**. 4. **AOR designation.** The EBiz POC logs into Grants.gov, sees the pending AOR request, and grants the role. Only then can that individual actually submit proposals on behalf of the company. Why this trips people up: - The EBiz POC role lives in **SAM.gov**, not Grants.gov, so founders look in the wrong place trying to figure out who can approve them. - A Grants.gov account that's been linked to your org but not granted AOR can look fully functional — until you hit "Submit" and get a permissions error. - If your original EBiz POC has left the company and SAM.gov wasn't updated, you may have **nobody** who can grant AOR status. Updating EBiz POC in SAM.gov is itself a multi-step process — not something to discover the week of a deadline. - Have **more than one AOR**. You do not want a single person to be the only one with submission authority when a deadline is six hours away and they're on a plane. Checklist: - [ ] Confirmed who the EBiz POC is for the organization in SAM.gov. - [ ] Each submitter has a Grants.gov account linked to the organization (via UEI). - [ ] EBiz POC has approved each submitter as an AOR. - [ ] At least two people in the organization hold AOR status. - [ ] AOR list captured in your [Company Facts template](/assets/files/company-facts-template.docx). --- ## 7. DOE PAMS — read this before you log in If you're applying for Department of Energy SBIRs, DOE Office of Science grants, or related programs, you'll use **PAMS (Portfolio Analysis and Management System)** at . > **⚠ WARNING — DO NOT CLOSE YOUR BROWSER WHILE LOGGED INTO PAMS.** Closing the browser tab or window without using the green **logout button** in the PAMS UI will lock your account. Recovery requires opening a ticket with the PAMS help desk, exchanging emails, and waiting for them to reset your session — a process that can take a full business day. This is the single most common DOE-applicant disaster, and it always happens at 11 p.m. the night before a deadline. **Always click the green logout button. Always.** Setup notes: - The **first** PAMS user from your institution creates the institution record using your **UEI, EIN, and address**. - Each PI, administrator, and other user thereafter must create their own individual PAMS account and request affiliation with the institution. - Always log out via the green logout button in the PAMS UI. Do not close the browser tab while logged in. (Worth saying twice.) - Maintenance windows happen often — keep your UEI, CAGE code, and PAMS credentials saved outside the system. --- ## 8. Adobe Acrobat — non-negotiable for some PDF forms > **⚠ Warning.** Several federal proposal packages — including some **NSF, DOD, and DOE/DOW** PDF forms — only render and submit correctly in **Adobe Acrobat**. macOS Preview, third-party PDF tools, and even the free Adobe Reader (in some cases) can silently corrupt these forms when you save them. These PDFs use Acrobat-specific form features (XFA forms, dynamic JavaScript-driven fields, embedded validation logic) that other PDF readers either can't render or quietly mangle on save. You can lose a proposal slot to a form that *looked* filled in on your screen but submitted blank. - For NSF and DOD/DOE submissions, **fill PDFs in Adobe Acrobat**, period. - Test the form by filling a few fields, saving, closing, and reopening — check the fields persisted exactly as you typed them. - If a form opens with a "Please wait..." message or visible rendering errors in Preview, that's the signal it needs Acrobat. - Budget for an Acrobat seat on the proposal-writing computer. It's far cheaper than re-submitting in the next cycle. --- ## 9. Other agency systems you'll likely encounter Beyond SAM.gov, Login.gov, ORCID, and SciENcv, each agency has its own identity / submission system. The most common across science-startup proposals: | System | Agency | What it's for | |---|---|---| | [Grants.gov](https://www.grants.gov) | Cross-agency | Discovery and submission for many federal grants | | [Research.gov](https://www.research.gov) | NSF | NSF proposal submission, awards management | | [eRA Commons](https://era.nih.gov/era-commons.htm) | NIH | NIH proposal submission, progress reports, awards management | | [PAMS](https://pamspublic.science.energy.gov) | DOE Office of Science | DOE Office of Science SBIR/STTR and research-grant submissions | | [EERE Exchange](https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/) | DOE EERE/BETO | DOE EERE/BETO funding-opportunity submissions | | [USDA NIFA](https://www.nifa.usda.gov) | USDA | USDA SBIR/STTR and research-grant submissions | | [DSIP](https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil) | DOD | DOD SBIR/STTR submissions | Each system requires its own account. Use the shared `grants@` mailbox as the contact address; tie individual user accounts to Login.gov and/or ORCID wherever supported. --- ## 10. Setup checklist ```markdown ## Shared mailbox & team - [ ] grants@ shared inbox set up (Outlook shared inbox or Google Collaborative Inbox) - [ ] PI, research team, ops, and backup members added with send-as access - [ ] Email signature and out-of-office routing configured ## Entity identifiers - [ ] SAM.gov registration started using a real physical address - [ ] UEI received and saved offline - [ ] CAGE code received and saved offline - [ ] SAM.gov renewal date in calendar (60-day reminder) ## Federated logins - [ ] Login.gov account for each PI and Ops user (under their own name) - [ ] ORCID iD for every research team member, using a personal email - [ ] ORCID profiles populated with education, employment, and publications - [ ] SciENcv account linked to ORCID and NSF Research.gov ## Agency systems (as needed for your proposals) - [ ] Grants.gov account for each submitter (linked to organization UEI) - [ ] EBiz POC confirmed in SAM.gov; each submitter approved as an AOR by the EBiz POC - [ ] At least two AORs designated so a single absence does not block submissions - [ ] Research.gov (NSF) account - [ ] eRA Commons (NIH) account - [ ] DOE PAMS institution + individual accounts - [ ] DOE EERE Exchange account - [ ] DOD DSIP account ## Submission tooling - [ ] Adobe Acrobat installed and licensed on the proposal-writing computer - [ ] One round-trip test (fill → save → reopen → verify) on each agency's PDF forms - [ ] Shared drive / folder for in-flight proposals - [ ] Calendar reminders for upcoming FOA deadlines (with 14-day pre-warnings) ``` --- *This guide pairs with the [Incorporated to Operational](/guides/incorporated-to-operational) guide (operational steps beyond setup) and the [SBIR Agency Links & Resources](/guides/sbir-agency-links) directory (where the actual FOAs live).*