Getting Help With A Proposal
1. Setting a Timetable | 2. Contacting CSDA Staff | 3. Preparing Budgets and Budget Justifications |
4. Preparing a Campus Impact Statement (CIS) | 5. Putting Together the Information Needed for the Particular Proposal |
6. Completing Research Plan or Text | 7. Human Subjects Protocol |
8. Putting Together the Complete Proposal Package | 9. Making Copies of Proposal and Submitting Proposal to Research Office
To make sure that a grant proposal is submitted in a timely fashion and meets the submission deadline, start with a timetable. There are three target dates to keep in mind. The first is for notifying CSDA that you are planning to submit a proposal. The second is submission of the campus impact statement (CIS) and the process of getting it circulated for appropriate signatures and then to the Dean's office. The third is submission of the final, completed proposal to the Research Office.
In order to help you effectively CSDA staff need to have adequate notice of your intention to submit a proposal. Here is a suggested timetable to meet the sponsor's deadline:
1. Non-competing continuation proposal - 2 weeks' notice
2. Regular NSF and NIH proposals - 4-6 weeks' notice
3. Complex proposals (subcontracts, other institutions, consultants, etc.) - up to 3 months' noticeThe PI should inform CSDA staff (Walter Ensel or Sandra Johnson) that a proposal is being prepared and set up an initial meeting to review the type of proposal (e.g., NSF, NIH, or foundation), deadlines, proposal requirements, and whether or not it involves a subcontract. At this meeting, a realistic timetable for the work to be done will be established. If the researcher requires more pre-proposal help with conceptualization aspects of the proposal (e.g., determining elements of the budget, scope of the project, etc.), a separate meeting can be set up with Walter Ensel. An additional meeting may be arranged to talk the project over with other experienced researchers. The PI should obtain a copy of the specific guidelines for the proposal if it is not intended for NSF or NIH.
3. Preparing Budgets and Budget Justifications
Preparation of the budget should start very early. A detailed budget is required for campus purposes (i.e., completion of campus impact statement and acquisition of proposal approval by appropriate university officials) as well as for the proposal itself. More important, thinking concretely about the budget is a good way to evaluate the scope of work and timetable. The following categories represent the information that is required (for a typical grant) in order to come up with a final budget:
a. Budget Categories
1. list of all personnel to be involved in the grant and estimated percent of their effort
2. current salary of the PI and all senior personnel
3. proposed salary of all other personnel (e.g., graduate students, secretarial, etc.)
4. consultants (if any)
5. equipment (only if over $5000)
6. travel (only if required; distinguish between domestic and foreign)
7. materials and supplies (e.g., publication costs, personal computers, office supplies)
8. computer services (if any)
9. subcontracts (if any)
10. other expenses (e.g., tuition if a graduate assistant is involved)b. Fringe Benefits, Tuition, and Indirect Cost Rates
Fringe benefit rates, tuition, and indirect cost rates can be found at the Office for Sponsored Programs website http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/rates.html. The most recent rates available should be used.
c. Budget Justification
Items listed in the budget should be clearly justified. Major duties/responsibilities of project staff should be listed. Role of consultant should be noted. Justifications for equipment, travel, and computer services, if any, should be explained. For a sample budget justification, see here. If a subcontract is involved, separate justification for personnel, equipment, travel, materials and supplies, computer services, and other expenses should be provided.
The PI can develop budget estimates in two ways:
1. By using the sample Excel budget spreadsheet. This sample spreadsheet can be found at here. This spreadsheet makes it easy to make a budget estimate for one year.
2. By using the sample budget page (NSF formatted) provided by the Office for Sponsored Programs. This can be found at http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/genbud.pdf.If you already have a draft of the budget but need assistance getting the information on appropriate budget forms, contact Sandy Johnson. Sandy can also check on and provide appropriate fringe benefit rates and verify current salaries for university employees. If you need assistance determining which categories apply to your grant proposal, if you have questions on appropriate scope of the budget as it relates to the project period, or you need assistance in coming up with a rough draft of a budget, he/she should contact Walter Ensel. If subcontracts are involved and you want assistance in scoping out the subcontract or if you have substantive questions on the subcontract, contact Walter Ensel. Please note that subcontract information must also be included with the campus impact statement.
When an application contains a SUBCONTRACT, the following is a list of required materials needed to be included with the application:
1. Letter of Commitment
2. Copy of the Organization's Rate Agreement
3. Detailed Budget
4. Budget Justification
5. Scope of Work (description of tasks to be performed by subcontractor)
4. Preparing a Campus Impact Statement (CIS).
In addition to the proposal itself, you must prepare a campus impact statement and obtain the appropriate approvals and signatures. You should do this in the early stages of the proposal preparation to allow for potential delays in getting signatures. We suggest completing a campus impact statement and a draft of the budget and budget justification at least two weeks prior to the due date for the submission of the proposal. It is the PI's responsibility to fill out the form, obtain appropriate signatures (e.g., department chair, center director, dean) and answer any questions posed by administrators who must authorize the campus impact statement with their signatures (e.g., Dean's office).
A copy of the campus impact statement can be found at http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/campusimpact.pdf. The form is self explanatory and can be filled out as a pdf file and printed out with Adobe Reader. Please note that if you want to save a copy of the completed campus impact statement as a file, you must have Adobe Acrobat on your computer and you must do the following: (1) open the pdf file, (2) save the pdf file to disk, (3) then, open the pdf file again, fill out the form, and again save it to disk. The saved form should contain all the information you typed into it. If you need assistance filling out the form, or dealing with the pdf file, contact Sandy Johnson. If you have substantive questions on items in the campus impact statement or need help determining information required for a particular question, contact Walter Ensel.
After the campus impact statement has been completed and at the same time that it goes to the Dean's office for the Dean's signature, a copy of the draft budget and the budget justification should be sent to the Office of Sponsored Programs for the research administrator's review.
Once all signatures are obtained, the campus impact statement, budget, and budget justification must be submitted to the Office of Sponsored Programs for final approval.
5. Putting Together the Information Needed for the Particular Proposal
Funding sources can vary greatly, all proposals are different, and funding agencies have specific guidelines, formats, and requirements. Proposals submitted to foundations often have specific formats to follow. However, most proposals submitted by CSDA associates go to NIH or to NSF. For details on the specific requirements for NIH applications (PHS-398), including instructions for filling out 398 forms, see NIH guidelines http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html. This site also contains PHS-398 forms and updates. We recommend using the pdf format to avoid any potential formatting problems. For details on specific requirements for NSF, see NSF Fastlane Electronic Proposal Submission Guidelines https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/guides/EB_Proposal_Submission.pdf . While formats are different, both types of proposals require that the following information be assembled and placed on various forms:
a. Budgets and budget justifications (see section 3 above)
b. Biosketches
It is the PI's responsibility to put together information needed for the biosketch and for the biosketches of all senior personnel on the project. There are two basic formats for biosketches, one for NIH and one for NSF.NIH:
1. PI's full name
2. Title of PI's current position at the University
3. Education (institution, degrees, year, field of study)
4. Positions and Honors
a. Professional positions and employment
b. Other experience and professional memberships
c. Honors
5. Selected peer-reviewed publications in chronological order (earlier dates first)
6. Research Support (current grants and grants completed in the last 3 years)(Please note, for standard proposals items 1 thru 5 are limited to two pages, and item 6 may occupy up to two pages.) For details on the specific NIH biosketch form and to view a sample bio sketch, visit http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/biosketchsample.pdf
NSF:
1. Professional preparation (institution, degrees, year, field of study)
2. Professional appointments (most recent first)
3. Publications (up to 5 recent ones and 5 other significant publications)
4. Synergistic activities (if relevant)
5. Collaborators and affiliations
a. Current collaborators and co-authors (last 4 years)
b. Graduate and post doc advisors
c. Thesis advisor and postgraduate-scholar sponsorFor details on specific NSF bio sketch requirements, see page 18 of NSF Grant proposal guide (NSF 04-2) at the following site: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf042/nsf04_2.pdf.
If you need assistance putting the information on the biosketch form, contact Sandy Johnson.c. Abstract
Usually provided on a form page for NSF (referred to as "Project Summary"). For NIH, the abstract appears on a form page along with description of performance site and a list of key personnel on the project.d. Resources
For NSF proposals, this is referred to as "Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources" page. For NIH, this is referred to as the "Resources Page." Both forms describe the following: PI's access to computers, office space, major equipment, and other resources (including university computing center, university library and/or other aspects of the university environment relevant to the project). A prepared text section describing CSDA's resources and facilities follows:
Other Resources
In addition to the University library system, this project will also have full access to the Information/Data Services Core of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis (CSDA). This core helps investigators identify, locate, and obtain data they need for their research. It also helps researchers locate relevant articles and books through on-line and print bibliographic searches. In addition, it maintains a small collection of reference materials and documentation. Services offered by this core include: identifying, locating and retriving documents; locating, acquiring, documenting and archiving data sets; coordination with the Computing/Statistical Core to make data available; liaison between the Center and the University Libraries; and assistance with survey research projects, including the construction of survey questionnaires, pretesting of survey instruments, and preparation of survey data for analysis. The Administrative Core of the CSDA will provide support for this project, including: secretarial and clerical; account management; personnel and purchasing transactions.University and CSDA Facilities
The project will enjoy full access to the computing facilities available in the CSDA. CSDA's UNIX network is served by an Enterprise 450 with 2 Gb of memory. There are 52 Gb of disk space backed up daily, and more than 30 Gb of disk space available for temporary files. The UNIX network provides access to a variety of statistical software, including SAS, SPSS, Splus, HLM, LISREL, and STATA. It also includes 7 workstations, ranging from Ultra-5 machines with 270 Mhz CPU and 128 Mb memory to SPARC station-20s with 75MHz CPUs and 96 Mb of memory. The system is supported by a 14 Gb 8mm tape storage device, a Sparc Storage Library 8/140 tape drive, 2 CSDA laser printers, and a line printer. The CSDA UNIX network is served by the University ethernet and can be accessed on and off campus. CSDA staff offer training, consulting, and support for affiliated projects in computer use, statistics, and software. The project will have full access to the UNIX cluster supported by University at Albany's Academic Computing. Academic Computing provides on-line, telephone, and in-person consulting with computing problems.e. Other Support
For NSF, a separate form page exists for Current and Pending Support. This requires the following information for each proposal: support type, proposal title, source of support, award amount, duration, location of project, and person/months committed to the project.
For NIH proposals, this entails current support and support in the last 3 years. Please note that this information actually appears as part of the biosketch. Current information required is as follows: title of project, sponsor, PI, proposal #, time period, and a brief (3-4 sentences) description of the project goals. (See sample biosketch at: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/biosketchsample.pdf.)
f. PI personal information.
Some PI information is required for face pages, coversheets, mailing labels, etc. It usually includes: full name, university title, campus address, campus phone, campus email, campus fax, social security number, date of birth, gender, and race.
6. Completing Research Plan or Text of Proposal
Funding sources can vary greatly, all proposals are different, and funding agencies have specific guidelines, formats, and requirements. Proposals submitted to foundations often have specific formats to follow. However, most proposals submitted by CSDA associates go to NIH or to NSF. For details on the specific requirements for NIH applications (PHS-398), including instructions for filling out 398 forms, see NIH guidelines http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html. This site also contains PHS-398 forms and updates. We recommend using the pdf format to avoid any potential formatting problems. For details on specific requirements for NSF, see NSF Fastlane Electronic Proposal Submission Guidelines https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/guides/EB_Proposal_Submission.pdf . While formats are different, both types of proposals require that the following information be assembled and placed on various forms:
The PI is responsible for writing the Research Plan and should complete it far enough in advance to allow it to be paginated and incorporated into the rest of the proposal. Special attention should be paid to formatting requirements. Currently, NIH is suggesting ARIAL 12 font, type density no more than 15 characters per inch, no more than 6 vertical lines in an inch, and at least ? inch margins (we suggest 1 inch margins, if possible, for xeroxing purposes).
The following type fonts work for a typical proposal: (CSDA's Center application used Arial 11 with 1" margins):
This is Arial 12
This is Arial 11
This is Arial 10This is Times New Roman 12
This is Times New Roman 11
This is Times New Roman 10NSF is suggesting the height of the letters in the type size must not be smaller than 10 point, type density must be no more than 15 characters per 2.5 centimeters (about 1 inch), no more than 6 vertical lines in 2.5 cm space, and 2.5 cm margins on top, bottom, left, and right (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf042/nsf04_2.pdf). Page limitations must also be strictly adhered to. If you need help getting the research plan printed out with the appropriate fonts, margins, etc., contact Sandy Johnson.
Both NSF and NIH state, in their proposal preparation guidelines, that they may return proposals (without peer review) that do not meet these format specifications.
7. Human Subjects Protocol
To conduct research involving human subjects, the researcher must be certified by the University at Albany as having fulfilled the human participants training and education requirement. Certification may be obtained by completing a mandatory training course which can be found at http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/HumanParticipantsEducation.pdf. This certification is in effect for
two years and researchers who wish to continue with their research on human participants beyond this time period must be re-certified. The re-certification program that has to be completed can be found at http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/ContinuingEducation.pdf.The PI is required to prepare and submit a Human Subjects Review Form to the University IRB for each grant proposal (dealing with research on human subjects) that the PI submits to a funding agency. This should be done prior to the submission of the proposal to the funding agency. The Human Subjects Review Form can be found http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/irb_form.pdf
This form should include a complete description of the research protocol and demonstrate the provisions made by the researcher for the adequate protection of the rights of research participants and also ensure that relevant federal regulations are observed. If you are unsure whether or not the proposed research project involves human participants (as defined by the regulations), you can contact the Human Protections Administrator (Cheryl Savini, CIP, Research Compliance Administrator, Office for Sponsored Programs, Management Services Center, Room 312; Phone: 437-4569; E-mail: csavini@uamail.albany.edu). If you need assistance filling out the Human Participants Research Review form, contact Walter Ensel. For more general information on university human subjects policies, see http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/humansubjects_page.html
8. Putting Together the Complete Proposal Packagel
CSDA staff can assist you in putting together all the different parts of the proposal for submission. To do this, it is important that you get all parts of the proposal to the CSDA office at least one week before the proposal is due at the funding agency. Once the entire proposal is assembled, the PI should meet with Sandy Johnson and Walter Ensel to verify the completeness of the proposal. At this time, all parts of the proposal should be examined for completeness.
9. Making Copies of Proposal and Submitting Proposal to Research Office
CSDA staff can oversee making appropriate number of copies of proposal and appendices (if required). The PI is responsible for preparing any cover letters that may be required to accompany the proposal. CSDA staff will assist the PI in delivering the proposal to the Research Office.
LINKS:
NIH Homepage: http://www.nih.gov/
NIH Grant Application Information including PHS398 Forms and Updates: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html
NIH Biosketch Form and Sample: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/biosketchsample.pdf
NICHD Small Grants Program: http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-99-126.html
NSF Grant Proposal Guide: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf042/nsf04_2.pdf
NSF Fastlane (Proposals, Awards, and Status): https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/fastlane.jsp
NSF Fastlane Electronic Proposal Submission Guidelines: https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/guides/EB_Proposal_Submission.pdf
NSF Biosketch Requirements (see page 18): http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf042/nsf04_2.pdf
Office for Sponsored Programs (OSP) Homepage: http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/
Office for Sponsored Programs Fringe Benefit Rates: http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/rates.html
Office for Sponsored Programs Generic Budget: http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/genbud.pdf
Office for Sponsored Programs Campus Impact Statement: http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/campusimpact.pdf
Office for Sponsored Programs Human Subjects Review Form:
http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/irb_form.pdfOffice for Sponsored Programs/General Information on University Human Subjects Policies:
http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/humansubjects_page.htmlOffice for Sponsored Programs/Mandatory Training Course for Certification:
http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/HumanParticipantsEducation.pdfOffice for Sponsored Programs/Re-certification Program: http://www.albany.edu/research/osp/ContinuingEducation.pdf
Office for Sponsored Programs Human Subjects Contact Person (Cheryl Savini): csavini@uamail.albany.edu
Walter (Chip) Ensel's E-mail: wme73@albany.edu
Sandy Johnson's E-mail: smj39@albany.edu