Posted: October 3, 2024

In September, Lehigh's research community was notified that it is now possible to submit NSF proposals using the system-to-system (S2S) function in LIRA. [NOTE: S2S is the submission of the proposal from LIRA electronically to grants.gov. For the NSF, proposals route from LIRA, through grants.gov and then on to research.gov.)

Upon submission of the first S2S NSF proposal, ORSP discovered that the proposal isn't checked against NSF requirements until it reaches research.gov. This means the proposal might be accepted by grants.gov, but we may still need to make corrections in research.gov before it can be officially submitted to and accepted by the NSF. It is important to recognize that the NSF only considers a proposal officially submitted once it’s validated in research.gov; the timestamp from grants.gov isn't accepted as the official submission time.

This validation issue is a result of an NSF operational decision. It is not a limitation of the LIRA system. All electronic research administration systems encounter this situation when utilizing S2S for NSF proposals. 

ORSP has concluded that this delayed NSF validation process creates additional burden for everyone involved in the proposal submission process and increases the risk of missing a submission deadline.

Effective immediately, Lehigh will not use the S2S function in LIRA to submit NSF proposals.  We will continue to use the same steps for NSF that were implemented when LIRA first launched:

  • The PI will initiate the proposal in research.gov and share it with SPO/AOR.
  • Proposal documents will be uploaded to the LIRA proposal workspace.
  • ORSP will upload final documents into research.gov, validate the proposal, and submit it to NSF.

For existing unsubmitted NSF proposals in LIRA for which system-to-system preparation is partially complete, ORSP Contract and Grant Specialists will work with proposal teams on a case-by-case basis to determine the best submission method.

If you have any questions about this update, please contact Sarah Riccaboni sar321@lehigh.edu or Susan Disidore sus5@lehigh.edu.