Award Life Cycle
Proposal
Development
Locate Funding &
Write Proposal
Additional
Funding
Sponsor
Reports
and
Close -out
Institutional
Clearances
The Award
“Life Cycle”
Tracking and
Accounting
Not Funded:
Reviewers’
Comments &
Resubmit
Funded:
Awards
Terms &
Conditions
Spend Money
and
Purchasing
Post-Award
Proposal
Submission
&
Sponsor
Review
Establish
Project
Account(s)
&
PI Briefing
Pre-Award
Pre-Award Basics
Grants
• A grant is a type of financial assistance awarded
to an organization for the conduct of research or
other program as specified in an approved
proposal. For an award to be considered a
grant, it will contain the following elements:
– Statement of work allows the PI significant freedom to
change the emphasis within the general area of work
as the project progresses
– Deliverables are minimal, consisting typically of
reports
– Separate accounting procedures are required
– Grants most often use the cost-reimbursement
method of payment
Contracts
• A contract is an agreement to acquire services
that primarily benefit the sponsor. For an award
to be considered a contract, it normally must
contain all of the following elements:
– Detailed financial and legal requirements included
with a specific statement of work
– A specific set of deliverable and/or reports to the
sponsor
– Separate accounting procedures
– Legally binding contract clauses
Contracts
• Contracts, by their nature, are restrictive,
meaning there is little flexibility on the part
of the academic department to rebudget
funds without prior sponsor approval.
Invoicing on contracts can be more
complex, especially if tied in with
milestones or tasks that must be
completed by the PI before an invoice can
be submitted and/or paid.
Clinical Trials
• The controlled, clinical testing in human
subjects of investigational new drugs,
devices, treatments, or diagnostics, to
assess their safety, efficacy, benefits,
costs, adverse reactions, and/or
outcomes. Such studies may be
conducted under an industry-developed
protocol or an investigator-developed
protocol.
UCLA Central Pre-Award Offices
• Non-Profit Grants – OCGA Analyst
• Non-Profit Contracts – OCGA Officer
• Industry Sponsored Research
Contracts (not including Clinical Trials) –
Office of Intellectual Property & Industry
Sponsored Research (OIP-ISR)
• Industry Sponsored Clinical Trials –
DGSOM Clinical Trials Administration
Office (CTAO)
Project Period
• The Project Period is the total time for
which support of a project has been
programmatically approved. A project
period may consist of one or more budget
periods.
Budget Period
• A budget period is the interval of time, usually 12
months, into which the project period is divided
for budgetary and funding purposes.
• Example: An award with a project period of July
1, 2007 – June 30, 2010 would have 3 budget
periods:
– (1) July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008
– (2) July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009
– (3) July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010
NIH Grant Numbers
• Example: 2 P01 HL030568-26A1
– 2 = Type of application
– P01 = Activity Code
– HL = NIH Institute to which the grant was
assigned (National Heart Lung & Blood Institute)
– 030568 = Serial # assigned by Center for
Scientific Review
– 26 = Year of support of the grant
– A1 = Other information identifying a Supplement
(S1), Resubmission (A1), or a fellowship’s
institutional allowance
NIH Application Types
• Type 1 – New
• Type 2 – Renewal (Competing Cont.)
• Type 3 – Application for additional
(supplemental) support
• Type 5 – Non-competing continuation
• Type 7 – Change in grantee institution
• Type 9 – Change in NIH awarding Institute
NIH Activity Codes
• Research Grants (R series)
• Career Development Awards (K series)
• Research Training & Fellowships (T&F series)
• Program Projects/Center Grants (P series)
• Cooperative Agreements (U series)
NIH Definitions of Proposal Types
• New (Type 1) – refers to an application not previously
proposed.
• Resubmission (A1) – Grants.gov term for a grant
application resubmitted to NIH after a PI applicant who
did not succeed in getting funded revised it based on
feedback from the initial peer review. Formerly known as
a revision
• Revision (S1) – Grants.gov term for money added to a
grant to expand its scope or meet needs of a research
protocol. Applicants must apply and undergo peer
review. Also known as a competing supplement.
NIH Definitions of Proposal Types
• Renewal, aka Competing Continuation (Type
2) – An application requiring competitive peer
review and Institute/Center action to continue
beyond the current competitive segment.
• Non-Competing Continuation aka Progress
Reports (Type 5), – A year of continued support
for a funded grant. Progress reports for
continued support do not undergo peer review,
but are administratively reviewed by the
Institute/Center and receive an award based on
prior award commitments.
Funding Opportunity
Announcements (FOA)
• Program Announcement (PA) – A formal statement
about a new or ongoing extramural activity or
mechanism. It may serve as a reminder of continuing
interest in a research area, describe modification in an
activity or mechanism, and/or invite applications for grant
support.
• Request for Applications (RFA) – A formal statement
that solicits grant or cooperative agreement applications
in a well-defined scientific area to accomplish specific
program objectives. An RFA indicates the estimated
amount of funds set aside for the competition, the
estimated number of awards to be made, and the
application submission dates. Applications submitted in
response to an RFA are usually reviewed by a Scientific
Review Group (SRG) specially convened by the
awarding component that issued the RFA.
Solicited vs. Unsolicited
• Solicited (also known as Targeted Research) –
Research funded as a result of an Institute set
aside dollars for a specific scientific area,
Institutes solicit applications using research
initiatives (PAs/RFAs for grants, RFPs for
contracts).
• Unsolicited (also known as Investigator-Initiated
Research) – Research funded as a result of an
investigator, on his or her own, submitting a
research application.
– For NIH, PIs submit unsolicited proposals using the
NIH’s Parent Announcements.
Funding Opportunity
Announcements (FOA)
• Parent Announcements – Electronic grant
applications must be submitted in response to
an FOA. For applicants who wish to submit what
were formerly termed Investigator-Initiated or
Unsolicited applications, NIH has developed
Parent Announcements. Responding to such an
umbrella Parent FOA ensures that the correct
application package is used and enables NIH to
receive the application from Grants.gov
NIH Standard Due Dates for
Competing Applications
• Standard Due Dates for Competing
Applications
– Includes Earliest Start Dates
NIH Modular vs. Detailed Budgets
• Modular - A type of grant application in
which support is requested in specified
increments without the need for detailed
supporting information related to separate
budget categories.
• Sample Modular Budget
• Usually max of $250,000 direct cost/yr, in
increments of $25,000
NIH Cost Sharing/Matching
• Definition: The value of third party in-kind
contributions and the portion of the costs of a
federally assisted project of program not borne
by the Federal Government. Matching or cost
sharing may be required by law, regulation, or
administrative decision of an NIH Institute or
Center. Costs used to satisfy matching or cost
sharing requirements are subject to the same
policies governing allowability as other costs
under the approved budget.
Mandatory Cost Sharing
• Contributions to projects that are required
by the sponsor as a condition of eligibility
and/or are a review criterion. Mandatory
cost sharing must be tracked and reported
to sponsors and cost shared effort must be
added to the individual’s Effort Report
during the effort certification process.
Voluntary Committed Cost Sharing
• Contributions to the project that are not required
by the sponsor but are offered in the proposal
(either in the budget or justification). Voluntary
committed cost sharing must be tracked and
reported to sponsors, and cost shared effort
must be added to the individual’s Effort Report
during the effort certification process.
• Example: Effort without salary listed in the
budget.
Voluntary Uncommitted
Cost Sharing
• Incidental or unanticipated contributions to
sponsored projects that were not pledged
in the proposal, are not an obligation of the
award, and do not have to be tracked or
reported to the sponsor. This type of cost
sharing often takes the form of investigator
effort over and above that for which
support was sought.
Pre-Award Resources
•DOM ORA website – Pre-Award section (includes preaward manual, forms & reference material)
–Proposal Preparation
–Proposal Intake Form
–Budget Preparation
•OCGA Proposal Preparation
–Commonly Needed Information
–UCLA Employee Benefit Rates
•NIH Forms & Applications
–SF424 (R&R) Forms and Instructions (Grants.gov)
–PHS 398 Forms and Instructions (Paper Submissions)
•NIH Glossary & Acronym List
Pre-Award Strategies
•Send out a monthly email to all PIs requesting information on
upcoming proposal deadlines.
•Web search for agencies guidelines, instructions & forms.
•Start EARLY!
•Meet with your PI in person. Use the Proposal Intake Form to
help guide your discussion.
•If the agencies does not provide a checklist of items required for
submission, use the proposal’s Table of Contents as a checklist.
•Read through the sponsor guidelines thoroughly, highlighting
important instructions
•Ask your colleagues for examples of similar proposals that were
successfully funded.
•Review all documents provided to you for compliance with
agencies guidelines, and format to create consistency within the
proposal.
•Ask for help if you need it!
Pre-Award Strategies
•Determine the proposal’s complexity
–Have you submitted to this agency before, and are aware of
their guidelines/policies?
–Subawards, foreign and/or domestic?
–Detailed budget vs. Modular budget?
–Paper vs. Electronic vs. Both?
–Number of Key Personnel?
–PI’s habits, e.g. always late/always early, expectations,
etc.?
–Animals and/or human subjects?
–Budget over $500,000 in any given year?
–Agency provides only non-fillable forms?
–Will the grant be submitted via OCGA or DRA?
–Do you have numerous proposals due on, or around, the
same deadline?