PROPOSAL REVIEW AND NEGOTIATION

PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND APPROVAL

The faculty member, or Principal Investigator (P.I.), initiates the proposal submission process when he/she contacts the appropriate Team in OSP for assistance in preparing a response to a solicitation or for help in preparing a budget that is to be a part of a proposal. We ask the P.I. to forward a copy of the sponsor solicitation to us as soon as possible. A business proposal is required in response to a formal solicitation, and the solicitation must be reviewed by OSP to ensure compliance with sponsor requirements and university and state policies. If possible, we would like to have a minimum of 5 days to review and process a solicitation, to ensure adequate time to prepare a quality product.

If your research proposal is an unsolicited one, we recommend that you talk to your prospective sponsor before preparing the proposal, to gauge his or her interest in your project. However, you should be aware that some sponsors have rules that preclude such contact.

As soon as you have completed a rough draft of your budget, please contact a member of your OSP team for an appointment to assist you in your budget preparations. Our staff members will ensure that your pricing conforms to university policies and they can provide you with information you may need on wages, fringe benefits, and indirect costs, and will draft the budget into the proper format for your proposal using any special sponsor forms that you have provided.

We will work with you to finalize your budget so that it conforms to the needs of your prospective sponsor and the university.

It will be your responsibility as principal investigator to have the full proposal — including your technical proposal, the business proposal, and the budget — word processed into its final form.

You will need to have your proposal package and finalized budget approved by your department, college, etc. A Proposal Approval Form must accompany your package.

Once you have obtained approvals, please bring a clean, reproduceable copy of the full proposal package and the PIAF to us. The Team member who prepared the budget or business package for the P.I., reviews the budget information and the total package for completeness. The technical proposal is not reviewed. (NOTE: Do not quantify any type of cost sharing in your technical write-up if it is not shown in your budget.) We will assign your proposal a number and enter it into the Banner Proposal System. This system will enable us to track the progress of your proposal, until it is funded, declined, or withdrawn.

We will prepare a transmittal letter to accompany your proposal to the sponsor, and will obtain the necessary university signatures. We will also reproduce copies of your proposal and distribute them to your prospective sponsor and to those who have signed as coordinators on your Proposal Internal Approval Form (PIAF).

Be aware that many proposal submission deadlines are absolutely final, and that over- night delivery services cannot guarantee delivery by the next day. You would be safer to have the proposal completed and sent at least a few days before the sponsor's deadline .

We'll keep a full copy of your proposal in our files until we hear from the sponsor whether or not your project is to be funded. If your proposal is declined, we will return our copy to you.

Several of our Federal sponsors are now requiring electronic submission of part or all of the proposal. If you are submitting a proposal to an agency that requires electronic submission, you should contact your OSP team member early in the process. It is the PI’s responsibility to enter the proposal into the electronic module. OSP will review the proposal for accuracy and completeness and submit the final copy of your proposal electronically. It is imperative that enough time be given for complete and accurate review prior to submission. The electronic systems tend to be extremely busy the day of submission and failures have occurred, so give yourself a safety factor by starting your process early.

Occasionally, circumstances require that a proposal be withdrawn after it has been submitted to a sponsor. Please advise us when these situations occur so that a formal, written university withdrawal can be provided to the sponsor.

NEGOTIATIONS AND AWARD ACCEPTANCE

Let' s assume that all goes well, and you find that your project will be funded. You will be deservedly pleased. But you will not necessarily have completed the Proposal Review and Negotiation process yet. Most awards require a certain amount of negotiation, and must be signed by university officials and the sponsoring organization before work may begin. Questions that are technical in nature will be referred to you to work out with your sponsor. Most often, however, negotiations concern fiscal and administrative matters. Please refer all questions of this type from your sponsor to us. OSP is responsible for negotiating these details with the sponsor. University policy and state and federal regulations must all be complied with in the terms and conditions of an award. It's our job to make sure that this is done. We don't set the policies-we simply assure that all our accepted awards comply with them.

COMMON CONTRACT TERMS AND CONDITIONS UNACCEPTABLE TO THE UNIVERSITY

Sponsors may include in their award documents certain terms and conditions that Virginia Tech cannot accept. Usually, such terms conflict with state law, our position as a non-profit educational institution, or university policies. The Office of Sponsored Programs is responsible for identifying such terms and conditions, and will work with your prospective sponsor to reach an agreement that will be acceptable for all parties. For your information, however, here is a short list of such terms that often require resolution.

• Our agreements cannot be subject to the laws of another state.
• By law, we cannot indemnify (hold harmless) our sponsors.
• By law, we cannot give up title to intellectual properties that result from research if the effort involved any substantial expenditure of state funds. (This normally involves faculty time and indirect costs not paid for by the sponsor.)
• As a university , we must preserve the right to publish the results of research done by faculty and students, so terms to the contrary must be carefully examined.

NOTIFICATION AND PROJECT ESTABLISHMENT

Once a project has been accepted, we'll update its status in our proposal monitoring system and establish it in the university's accounting system. It is important to note that only authorized university officials may sign an award on behalf of the university. Such approval is not within your authority.

OSP sends the P.I. and the department head notification that the project has been accepted and established. You will receive a Project Authorization Notice via email. As soon as you receive your project authorization number and the performance period of your award has begun (both will be noted on the PAN), you may begin work and start charging direct costs to your project. The PAN will also tell you which OSP team member has been assigned to support you in the administration of your project throughout its duration.