VPA Faculty External Funding Pre-Award Process
Please be sure to follow these procedures for submitting an external funding application.
Complete Required Trainings:
Be sure you have completed the University’s Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) Training within the last four years. This mandatory training is designed to ensure research will be free from bias resulting from investigators’ financial conflicts of interest. Outstanding training completions by any senior/key personnel named in the proposal may delay or prevent OSP from submitting the proposal to the sponsor by the submission deadline.
Be sure you have completed the University’s Research Security Training within one year prior to your proposal submission deadline. This mandatory training provides recipients of federal research funding with information on risks and threats to the global research ecosystem and the knowledge and tools necessary to protect against these risks and undue foreign influence. Outstanding training completions by any senior/key personnel named in the proposal may delay or prevent OSP from submitting the proposal to the sponsor by the submission deadline.
Contact your Pre-Award Support Staff: As soon as you have identified a potential funding opportunity, email Sarah Workman (srworkma@syr.edu), director of research development for the arts & humanities, in the Office of Research Development, so she can initiate the proposal set up process with her colleague Allison Haynes (ahaynes1@syr.edu), research administration analyst in the Office of Research Services. Haynes will then communicate the relevant information to Mae O’Neill, research administrator in the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP), so that she is aware of your intent to submit.
Project Management: Haynes will set up a Teams folder to manage all project documents, internal deadlines and deliverables.
Please copy Seyeon Lee (slee80@syr.edu), associate dean for strategic initiatives and research, on the email to ensure support and situational awareness.
Proposal Kick-Off Meeting: You will hear from Haynes via email about scheduling an initial meeting to discuss internal deadlines, required proposal components and relevant sponsor guidelines. In the meeting, she will ask you a series of questions about your project to inform you of the next phases of research administration and development. Haynes will work with the team to schedule additional check-in meetings if deemed necessary, including narrative and budget development meetings.
Narrative Development: Workman will collaborate with your project team to schedule ideation sessions and set up internal reviews. These reviews provide feedback on narrative components, including work plans, timelines, data management plans and other required elements.
Budget Development: Haynes will work with your project team to develop your project budget. She will transcribe any initial budget you’ve put together into the internally required OSP budget template. She will also complete a sponsor budget template if applicable and work with you on the budget narrative/justification if one is required. If anything in the budget requires prior approvals internally, such as course buyouts or research leaves, Haynes will notify you and support you through that process. Once the budget is complete, she will send it to Mae O’Neill in OSP for her pre-approval.
Submission Support: Haynes will complete the Proposal Approval Form (PAF) on your behalf, which is the primary intake form for OSP. Completion of the PAF is required prior to proposal submission. As part of the PAF process, you will secure ADR approval for the submission. The PAF has replaced the Internal Routing and Review (IRR) form and is completed via Qualtrics. For portal submissions (the most common proposal submission), Haynes will input the information and upload the documents developed by the team. She will provide an initial compliance review then inform O’Neill in OSP that the proposal is ready to submit. O’Neill will conduct a final compliance review before submitting the proposal, as authorized signer for Syracuse University.