Funding proposals that have more than one Principal Investigator (PI) require a PI Certification from each PI.
A ‘PI Certification Request’ is sent to all individuals with the role of PI/PD when the below steps are completed. PI Certification is the only component of a funding proposal that must be completed by a PI.
Funding proposals cannot be submitted to a sponsor without a completed PI Certification for all PIs listed on a funding proposal, and these certifications are expected to be completed in addition to the funding proposal at least four (4) business days prior to the sponsor deadline.
Once the proposal documents have been finalized and uploaded into the funding proposal in MyFunding, the Department Administrator should execute one of the following two activities to trigger the PI Certification for the PI:
1 – For funding proposals being submitted System-to-System (i.e. via Grants.Gov) within MyFunding, the activity ‘Update SF424 Research Plan’ should be used (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. ‘Update SF424 Research Plan’ activity
After the proposal documents (including research plan and attachments) are uploaded into MyFunding, Question 14 should be marked as ‘yes’ (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. ‘Update SF424 Research Plan’ activity pop up window
OR
2 – For funding proposals being submitted within MyFunding as ‘Other (Submitted by Office of Sponsored Programs)’ (ex: NSF FastLane) or ‘Other (Submitted by Department)’ (ex. Pitt as a subrecipient to another university), the activity ‘Submit Proposal Documents’ should be used (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. ‘Submit Proposal Documents’ activity
After the proposal documents (including research plan and attachments) are uploaded into MyFunding, Question 2 should be marked as ‘yes’ (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. ‘Submit Proposal Documents’ pop up window
Performing either of the above activities will trigger the following PI Certification notification to all of the PI’s (must have the role ‘PD/PI’) listed on the ‘Additional Personnel’ page of the funding proposal (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. ‘Additional Personnel’ page
The link provided in the notification will take each of the PIs into the funding proposal workspace to complete the PI Certification by clicking on the ‘Submit PI Certification’ activity (see Figures 6 and 7).
Figure 6. ‘PI Certification Request’ email notification example
Figure 7. ‘Submit PI Certification’ activity
