Published September 2, 2026, via Research News
SPA is implementing a new Monday.com board and submission form to streamline the process for submitting and tracking prior approval requests.
This new process is being implemented in response to the NIH’s January 21, 2026 release of NOT-OD-26-026, “NIH Requires Use of the eRA Prior Approval Module for the Submission of ALL Prior Approval Requests.” Under this policy, NIH requires prior approval requests for grants and cooperative agreements to be submitted through the eRA Commons Prior Approval Module.
To help ensure that requests are complete, appropriately routed, and submitted to NIH in a timely manner, all applicable prior approval requests should be initiated through the new Monday.com form.
Starting September 2, 2026, SPA will no longer accept prior approval requests via email. All requests will need to be submitted via Monday.com. A Monday.com license is not required to use this form.
The Monday.com form will be used for the following types of prior approval requests:
- No-Cost Extensions (NCEs)
- NCE requests will now be submitted through the new Prior Approval board. Any existing requests submitted through the current NCE board will remain there and be finalized on that board. Once all existing requests have been finalized, the current NCE board will be archived. Going forward, all new NCE requests should be submitted using the new Prior Approval form.
- Carryover Requests
- Change of Principal Investigator (PI)
- Relinquishing/Transferring an Award to a New Institution
- Other Prior Approval Requests, including:
- Change in scope or objectives
- Change in key personnel (other than the PI)
- Adding or removing a foreign component
- Early Terminations
- Effort reduction
- Pre-award costs exceeding 90 days
- Rebudgeting requests
- Other
Departments can track the status of prior approval requests submitted to SPA on the Track Award Set Up and SPA Requests webpage.
If you have any questions, please contact Devin Bennett (d.bennett@wustl.edu).