Government Computer News reports that Grants.gov is considering development of a consolidated grant awards database. I'm heavily involved in Federal grants management systems development (it's one of my company's core competencies) so this is intriguing news to me.
The proposal makes a good deal of sense but adds more weight to the argument that Grants.gov isn't actually adding any value to agency's own businesses -- just more integration burden. So far, Grants.gov has asked an enormous amount from granting agencies, in terms of BPR, data rationalization, and systems integration. And, for the most part, agencies don't feel that they've got a lot of "good" out of the deal. If Grants.gov goes ahead with this initiative, grantees will certainly be happier but agencies will be no happier, as far as I can tell.
Personally, I think it's time that Grants.gov gave something more valuable back to the agencies, such as grants reporting functionality. That would be a great deal harder than what's proposed here, where most of the effort will be palmed off to the agencies. But it would give both the grantees (customers) and grantors (suppliers) a greater incentive to become enthusiastic about Grants.gov and how it's changing Federal grants management.
Incidentally, the approach proposed for this awards database -- Web Services integration with agency award systems -- happens to confirm that our company's solution to Grants.gov integration is the right one.
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