How to Prepare and Route a Proposal
As soon as you are aware that you may be responding to a Request For Proposal (RFP), please notify the Office of Research and Grants (ORG) of your plans (7-2723). We register your intent to pursue a grant with the Division of Sponsored Research and Training (DSRT) who mediates situations where there are multiple grant submissions from an institution. So , for example, if another unit on campus were to pursue the same RFP, and the funding agency's guidelines stipulated only one submission from each institution, DSRT will make the decision as to who may proceed with a formal proposal. All other things being equal (and they usually are not), the earlier registered entity gets the “go-ahead”.
All grant and contract proposals must be submitted to ORG with an internal clearance form signed by the relevant parties (usually the principal investigator and department chair). If you are in the early states of negotiating a contract, your preliminary budget must be routed like any other proposal. Many contracts are initiated by the principal investigator, but all contracts are ultimately negotiated between Florida International University and the school district, company, or agency. Grants and contracts are all made between the district, agency, or company and Florida International University, not with the principal investigator. The Office of Research and Grants is dedicated to helping you negotiate the submission process with as little hassle as possible. The office can provide virtually any form or proposal guideline you need within 24 hours (often sooner) and maintains files for some of the most requested forms (NSF and Department of Education, for example). The office can help you use the electronic resources currently available to make grant submission faster and easier.
When preparing proposals it is essential that you check out the pages below that contain information needed to prepare a proposal in the College of Education. Information in these links provides data needed for budget preparation and internal clearance form preparation.
Deadlines - The Division of Sponsored Research and Training is becoming more strict about deadlines! The office will not accept proposals after 5 PM in the evening and will not guarantee timely submission of proposals not received at least one week before the agency or company deadline.
Budget preparation - Budgets should be submitted to the Office of Research and Grants sufficiently in advance of the deadline to insure enough time to correct them if necessary, and process them. The Office will be happy to prepare a budget for you, more or less from scratch, even from a paper napkin scribble, if you specify costs you expect to cover in each budgeting period. Budgets must be submitted to DSRT with all proposals even when the program uses "just in time" submission which does not require the budget be delivered with the proposal. In most cases, two budgets will be prepared—one using the funding agency's format and the other using the FIU format. While this may seem redundant, it allows DSRT a standardized way of making commitments across a wide array of proposals. Budget explanations must be explicit and complete. The origin of all salary for all investigators must be specified even for salary offered as cost sharing. DSRT has strict guidelines regarding cost-sharing (as in don't do it unless required by the grant). If you choose or need to cost-share, fill out this form.
All budgets must accompany the Direct Charge Exemption Form to comply with OMB Circular A-21 and A-110.
If you are submitting an NSF or NIH proposal that deviates from the standard proposal guidelines please provide us (lend us) a copy of the guidelines with the final submission of your grant. If you are submitting to any other agency or foundation, a copy of the guidelines from which you work will be helpful (sometimes even necessary) for us in dealing with DSRT and insuring that your proposal does not meet any last minute roadblocks.
Indirect costs must be charged according to the rate negotiated by the University. Note that the university expects to collect indirect costs on contracts just as on grants. A waiver of or lesser indirect cost rate is granted only if the agency or organization specifies a lower rate or no indirect costs in writing.
If you are submitting a grant proposal with investigators from another unit on campus and several units will receive indirect costs, you must negotiate this agreement ahead of time. With or without this letter, the College always assumes it will split indirect costs according to how expenses are incurred. Such splits may be accomplished in two ways: through budget transfers arranged between/among budget officers in the units involved or by setting up a separate budget for each investigator. We strongly encourage all investigators have a clear understanding of how indirect costs will be divided.
DSRT and ORG each require one copy of a proposal for filing. Do not forget copies for each investigator included in the proposal.
The internal clearance and other required forms must be neatly typed before route sheets are signed. We will help with this if the deadline is imminent.
Once your grant is ready for final submission , the internal clearance form must be signed by Associate Dean Shermis. If Dean Shermis is not available, another person with signature authority will be designated in his place. Announcements to that effect are disseminated through College-wide e-mail.
When you receive an award that resides in another school please inform ORG in writing so we may know of your accomplishment as soon as possible, and include it in the reports we deliver to our various constituents.
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