Applying for a Research Grant

General HRSA grant information.

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau offers a variety of grant and cooperative agreement funding.  Search the Funding Opportunities page for research-specific grants.

Join the MCH Research Listserv if you wish to receive alerts about open MCH Research funding opportunities.

The applicant should carefully review MCHB's priorities and then review the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).  NOFO is another term for "grant guidance" or "program guidance." Next, submit a letter of intent, only if required, to the project officer for the program. The NOFO will state if a letter of intent is required.  

If the applicant has any questions when preparing an application, contact the project officer to clarify the intent of the program guidance.  Contact the grants official for any budget questions.  The NOFO provides contact information.

Submit the completed application ONLY through Grants.gov. You must register at Grants.gov in advance as the registration process can take up to one month

Registering at the Grants.gov site is an essential step in the grant application process. If the applicant does not complete the registration process, the applicant cannot  submit an application.

To successfully register in Grants.gov:

• Obtain an organizational Data Universal Number System (DUNS) number
• Register the organization with System for Award Management (SAM)
• Identify the organization's E-Business POC (Point of Contact)
• Confirm the organization's SAM "Marketing Partner ID Number (MPIN) password
• Register an Authorized Organization Representative (AOR)
• Obtain a username and password from the Grants.gov Credential Provider

Instructions on how to register, tutorials and FAQs are available on the Grants.gov web site. Assistance is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week (excluding Federal holidays) from the Grants.gov help desk at support@grants.gov or by phone at 1-800-518-4726.

When applying through Grants.gov:

• Download a copy of the application package.
• Complete the application off-line. 
• Upload and submit the application via the Grants.gov site.
• Check the status of applications submitted via Grants.gov.

Submit your Application Early. Deadlines are absolute.  MCHB will not accept any application submitted after a program's deadline.

The review takes 60-75 days from the application due date. This is a rough estimate.

• HRSA staff review the application to assure that the applicant met the grant deadline and grant application requirements.
• The grants office reviews the budgets and then forwards the applications to the Division of Independent Review (DIR).
• DIR and the MCHB program officer are responsible for examining the application to determine that page limits have been followed, and that the applicant is eligible to apply.
• DIR then convenes a panel of content experts to review and score all applications submitted in a given program area. The review panel might meet face-to-face or over the telephone.
• The panel develops a detailed summary review that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of each application according to the review criteria.  The panel scores each application. These scores are used to develop the rank order list.

The process to determine whether the application will be awarded funding takes an estimated 4 months. This is a rough estimate.
Applications are awarded based on available funding and the rank order list

• Applications are processed by Grants Management, all of the applicants are informed about the status of their application.
• The MCHB system sends notifications to all applicants regarding whether or not the proposal has been funded.  A summary of the review panel comments is provided for both successful and unsuccessful applications.
• If the project has been funded, the letter also includes a Notice of Award (NOA). The notice of grant award might include conditions and recommendations.
• In order to receive funding, the applicant must respond to any conditions placed upon their grant award. For example, the applicant may need to submit a revised budget or clarify something presented in their application.

Once all conditions have been met, the Grants Management Office releases the funds and the project begins. The grantee and project officer will have regular meetings throughout the life cycle of the grant in order to provide any technical assistance and monitor the progress of the project.

The project officer will provide grantees with more detail about each of these reporting requirements upon receipt of the grant award.