Grants.gov

USACM discusses a Washington Post article about the new Grants.gov system for viewing and filing funding applications. Apparently the new system requires you to download a client program to view and submit applications. The kicker is that this is a Windows-only app; they recently started using Citrix as a way of dealing with this problem, but there are still no clean solutions.

The Washington Post article explicitly refers to Mac users (because of the preponderance of Mac users in the natural sciences, I imagine), but the problems remain for Linux users as well. I have never had to use this system, and since the NSF allows for submission via FastLane as well, I doubt many of my readers have, but I find it rather amazing that the government felt the need to design a special application just to allow researchers to connect securely to the main funding servers.

Update: Dave Schroeder of UWisc says:

The University of Wisconsin has released a standalone package for using Grants.gov on Mac OS X as a service to the community. The package uses Citrix client software and a special settings file to access the central Citrix server provided by Grants.gov, allowing users to access and use the PureEdge software via the remote Windows machine running Citrix server software:

http://apple.doit.wisc.edu/grants.gov/

Categories

• funding