Signing Official (SO)

An SO has institutional authority to legally bind the institution in grant-administration matters by providing signature approval on grant application submissions. The SO monitors grant related activities within the extramural organization and may have a number of titles. The SO can also create additional accounts for personnel at their institution, including new signing official accounts.

To find your signing official, see Finding Your Signing Official later in this topic.

If you hold an SO role, you have privileges to perform the following tasks:

An SO role cannot be combined with a PI role.

Finding the Signing Official

For most institutions, the signing official (SO) is in the Office of Sponsored Research or equivalent. You can find the list of signing officials for your institution in the Institution Profile.

  1. Log in to eRA Commons.

  2. Navigate to the Institution Profile module, then click the Basic Information tab.

You see a row titled Signing Officials and TTO Administrators*.
Portion of the screen showing the SO & TTO Admin component
  1. Click the plus sign to view the name(s) of the signing official(s).

If you are unable to identify your SO, contact the eRA Service Desk.

* * A Technology Transfer Office (TTO) Administrator supports the Technology Transfer/Licensing Office or Office of Research and Development at the grantee organization. The TTO administrator can submit inventions, patents, and utilization reports in iEdison, request waivers and create iEdison accounts.