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Proposal Submission Guidelines

The College of Engineering wants every proposal that is submitted to be compelling and draw the attention of the reviewers as a good candidate for funding. This requires sufficient time to review and identify potential issues and address them at the best of our ability. We deploy services of grant consultant for large and complex proposal. We also have a team that can provide a second set of eyes for a quick review. Our experience, however, is that proposals are often submitted in a rush, close to the last minute, and not allowing for such reviews. We even had situations when proposals could not be submitted because the sponsor’s portal was closed by the time the application package was complete.

Overview

Routing and approvals in Streamlyne are structured differently than in the legacy Liquid Office GoldSheet system. With Streamlyne, budgets for sponsored projects will be finalized and routed directly to OSPA for an “Initial Review” to reduce the return of proposals for budget issues and subsequent re-work. In the Initial Review, OSPA will review and approve the budget before the overall proposal is finalized and routed for approvals.

NOTE: The ERI Pre-Award Services descriptions outline additional time needed by ERI to prepare the budget, budget justification, etc., to meet the OSPA deadlines.

Initial Review – 8 working days ahead of sponsor deadline

The budget is required to be submitted by the PI/Pre-Award Admin to the OSPA Pre-Award Team for Initial Review 8 working days ahead of the sponsor deadline. This will be a firm deadline. For the budget to be reviewed the following documents must be included:

  • Budget
  • Budget Justification
  • Approved F&A Waiver Request Form (if applicable)
  • Approved Cost Share Request Form (if applicable)
  • Sponsor forms and documents which need to be signed or completed by OSPA
  • Firm Subrecipient Commitment Amount for Each Subrecipient
    • Amount budgeted for a subrecipient cannot change after Initial Review
    • NIH Modular and USDA TFFA budgets will require Total Direct and Total F&A Amounts
  • Proposal Guidelines

The OSPA Pre-Award Team will review the budget and return the budget for any needed corrections. Once the budget is finalized in correct form, the budget will be approved by the OSPA Pre-Award Team. Once OSPA approves the budget, the Proposal Document can be entered into Workflow for approvals. This Streamlyne deadline is shorter than the Liquid Office GoldSheet two-week deadline for proposals budgeted at $2M or above.

Proposal Document and Approvals

Once the Streamlyne Proposal Document is finalized, routing for approvals will take place in Streamlyne. Streamlyne proposals are locked and may not be edited once routed for approvals, which requires the Proposal Document and budget to be finalized ahead of entering workflow for signatures and approvals. The Proposal Document in Streamlyne will be signed by all Key Personnel and then reviewed and approved by the lead administering Streamlyne Unit (department/institute/ center/extension unit in the legacy system) and Streamlyne Reporting Units (RUs; RRCs in the legacy system).

Workflow Routing – 4 working days ahead of sponsor deadline

The Streamlyne Workflow Routing requirement is similar to the Liquid Office GoldSheet Routing deadline of 4 days except that this is a firm deadline. The Streamlyne Proposal Document must start routing 4 working days ahead of the sponsor deadline. The following items must be finalized before routing the Proposal Document for signatures and approvals:

  • Final Budget and Budget Justification as approved by OSPA in Initial Review
  • Final Project Abstract
  • Draft Scope of Work/Project Narrative
  • Completed System-to-System (S2S) forms for Grant.gov submissions
  • Note: Streamlyne allows for changes to uploaded attachments but not to the S2S forms for Grants.gov submissions after the Proposal Document is submitted into workflow routing for approvals.
  • Completed Sponsor-required forms (if needed)
    • Forms or letters requiring an OSPA signature
    • Web forms required for S2S Grants.gov submissions
    • Institutional Support Letters
  • Final Subrecipient Documents
    • Budget (matching numbers approved by OSPA in Initial Review)
    • Budget Justification (if needed)
    • Signed Letter of Commitment from Authorized SignatoryS
    • Scope of Work

The PI will be able to continue working on all attachments (Scope of Work/Project Narrative, Biosketch, Current & Pending) while the Proposal Document is routing in workflow. These attachments will need to be finalized and uploaded to Streamlyne by noon of the sponsor’s submission deadline.