The US Federal Government provides financial support in the form of grants to individuals and institutions for research in the areas of public interest or wellbeing of common citizens. The projects are funded out of the general federal revenue.  The federal government has a website ‘grants.gov’ as a single access point for all types of grants. This site has a page titled ‘Learning Center’.

It is very important to understand the complete process involved for obtaining grants. Some basic points to remember for quick and hassle-free passage of your application are to learn about the policy of grant; check the eligibility for the project; search for the right federal grant, register at Gants.gov, submit your application, and track the application status till its final decision.

Before you begin to search for funds, you will need to do the ground work:

• Identify the field of your work, including its objective
• Prepare a detailed proposal that should include
  • Details of the principal Investigator
  • Period of research with starting and end dates
  • The need of funds and how it is proposed to be spent
  • Details of the Institution under whose aegis the project will be undertaken

You can then go to the ‘Learning Center’ of grants.gov. The ‘Learning Center’ of grants.gov is, in essence, the gateway to federal grants. This page provides detailed information about the categories of grants, the policies, eligibility, the programs, terms and conditions of award, agencies handling grants and other necessary information. These help an aspirant to pick up the right category of grant for his /her project.

Once you have identified the category under which your/ your organization‘s project is eligible to seek grant, you may proceed to get yourself or your organization registered on web site ‘grants.gov’. The point to remember is that only one account can be created per entity. Once the account has been created, grants.gov assigns a unique workspace to you.

The next logical step is to apply for an opportunity suitable to you. For this, the simple steps are:

• Log into your workspace.
• An applicant can customize the forms to include all specific information and workflows to suit aspecific project.

The government has made it mandatory to submit the application and other supporting document electronically. This has eased the process with self-tracking the status of application and optimisation. However, for the uninitiated this process might be cumbersome and this is where Key Solutions has come up with a solution.

Key Solutions has developed an eGrants module. This web-based module is simple and user friendly. eGrants provides necessary solution to help the grant management process of creation and submission of application and other relevant documents. It also facilitates post-submission tracking of the applications till the same are finally disposed of.

eGrants also serves as a central repository for all the relevant institutional data. This increases efficiency, reduces obsolescence, and eliminates errors. Thus, eGrants not only saves time and effort, but also enhances the probability of the grant being awarded.

If you, as an individual or your institute has a project that is likely to get stalled because of lack of funds, just submit your application to grants.gov with the help of eGrants of the Key Solutions to expedite resolution.