Proposal Development FAQs

The most commonly requested organizational codes and numbers are listed below and also in our Frequently Needed Information section of this website. If you cannot find what you need on this list, please contact your Proposal Analyst.

• UEI: SPVKK1RC2MZ3 (replaces DUNS as of April 2022)
• DHHS Animal Welfare Assurance #: D16-00388 (former number was A3646-01)
• Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code: 4B475
• Congressional District: CO-002
• Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN): 84-6000555 (1-846000555-A2 for HHS & Dept. of Education)
• DHHS Human Subjects Assurance #: FWA00003492

View the current F&A Rate Agreement.

View the current IRS tax exempt status letter.

You can bookmark era.cu.edu.

Or, from the OCG website, click eRA from the top navigation bar, and from that page click on the Boulder eRA Login button.

From there, select the Boulder Campus and enter your CU Boulder identikey credentials.

Select Sponsored Projects in the left navigation, this will bring up the option to select “Create new PSR”.

PIs or Unit Administrators can complete the Online PSR form. If a Unit Administrator completes the form, PIs will need to certify the PSR within InfoEd before it routes to the OCG Proposal Analyst for approval.

Your Proposal Analyst can assist with any questions regarding the Online PSR form. You may also visit the following video tutorials and helpful tips.

Yes. The Online PSR will automatically save as information is completed. If you exit the record, you can access the Online PSR at a later time by searching with the Proposal Number that was assigned when you initiated the Online PSR.

While there is no shorter version available, you can use the “copy proposal” function to copy much of the same Online PSR information from a prior Online PSR submission.

This can be done in the Instructions Tab of the Online PSR form. To add or change Associated Departments, click "Add" and select the additional department and then click on the select button in the right top corner of the window. Remove any org codes that may have been added or selected in error.

When the PSR is submitted, the person identified as the Principal Investigator (PI) accepts certifications that the University requires the project PI to acknowledge. When these certifications are not obtained during the routing of the Online PSR, the actual PI on the project will need to sign the Offline PSR Signature form and return the signed document to the Proposal Analyst. This form may also be used when signatures from other responsible parties are needed. 

Co-PI/I(s) are included in the routing process for the purpose of alerting them of their affiliation with the intended proposal. No action or approval of the Online PSR is required.

Remember you must complete the Build and Submit step in order to have the PSR routed to your Proposal Analyst.

Ensure your HCM profile includes only your @colorado.edu email address.

Use the OCG Unit Directory to locate your department’s Proposal Analyst.

In your email to your Proposal Analyst, please include your Proposal Submission Request form and budget. Budget details can be provided in text form or using a budget template. View our proposal development pages for more information on starting a new proposal.

Please contact your Proposal Analyst as soon as you have identified a funding opportunity. At a minimum, you should contact your analyst no later than five business days before the sponsor deadline, and provide your completed Proposal Submission Request (PSR) form, budget, and budget justification in your request. Budget details can be provided in text form or using a budget template.

According to OCG’s Five Business Day Rule, your PSR form, budget, and budget justification should be sent your Proposal Analyst for review at least five business days before the sponsor deadline. The rest of your proposal should be completed and routed to your Proposal Analyst as early as possible to ensure a thorough review.

If you’re submitting a proposal through Grants.gov, we highly recommend submitting at least two business days before the deadline. It can take several hours to several days for Grants.gov and the specific agency to process and approve your proposal. Any errors that occur after a deadline, regardless of when you receive notification of an error, will prevent submission and acceptance of your proposal.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is always responsible for the budget justification, documents related to project personnel and the technical portions of the proposal as well as for being familiar with sponsor and program submission guidelines. 

Your Proposal Analyst will assist with developing a proposal budget as well as help to ensure that the proposal adheres to sponsor guidelines and other applicable policies and regulations.

Additionally, PIs are responsible for providing signed internal forms to Proposal Analysts such as the IDC Addendum, Cost Sharing Addendum and subrecipient forms. Internal forms will be saved as part of the internal proposal file.

If you would like to discuss a research proposal or other sponsored funding application, contact your Proposal Analyst. Also contact your Proposal Analyst for any other questions that arise prior to receiving an award and for assistance with progress reports. 

If you have already received an award, contact your Grant or Contract Officer. The OCG team assigned to your department can be found in the Unit Directory. 

View our organizational structure for more information about the team functions within OCG.

Proposal Analysts are always happy to assist with navigating you to who to contact in OCG.

Most proposals, especially to federal sponsors, require OCG’s involvement, and you should contact your Proposal Analyst as early as possible.

OCG will help develop your budget and guide you through the submission process as well as check to ensure that your proposal complies with sponsor guidelines and any other relevant policies and regulations. Many sponsors also require that an Authorized Organizational Representative (or Signing Official) submit your proposal.

Even if the sponsor allows the Principal Investigator (PI) to submit the proposal, if funding will come through the University, OCG will still need to review the full proposal prior to submission. Submitting without OCG’s assistance can result in detrimental budget errors and delays in processing your award.

Here are two situations in which you may not need to involve OCG:

Preliminary proposals (or similar – such as white papers or concept papers) do not require OCG involvement unless a budget is included or if the sponsor requires that an Authorized Organizational Representative submit the pre-proposal.

Fellowships that do not require an institutional endorsement and the funding will go directly to the student may be submitted directly by the student without OCG involvement.

In any instance, if you’d like assistance with budgeting, please contact your Proposal Analyst.

Contact your Proposal Analyst if the program announcement limits the number of submissions from CU Boulder. S/he will work with the Research and Innovation Office (RIO) to determine whether or not there is or will be an internal competition in place.

For more information regarding limited campus competitions, please visit the Research and Innovation Office (RIO) website.

By involving your Proposal Analyst prior to proposal submission, you are ensuring that a completed proposal is on file at OCG, which your Grant or Contract Officer will need in order to process the award.

It is also important to have all required approvals on file, including your DEPA and IACUC/IRB approvals, as appropriate.

Yes, you will need to work with your Proposal Analyst on fellowship proposals.

Exception: If the sponsor does not require an institutional endorsement and the check will be made directly to the student, then you do not need to involve your Proposal Analyst.

If you plan to be involved in an industry proposal, contact the Office of Industry Collaboration. Depending on the particular sponsor and program guidelines, there may be special requirements.

View the Prinicipal Investigator Eligibility policy for a complete list.

Detailed guidance on completing the PSR form is available in the PSR User Guide. Your Proposal Analyst can also assist with any questions.

Many grant proposals require a letter of support from an institutional signing official, typically provided by the Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation (VCRI). The following process standardizes the procedure for requesting a letter of institutional support from the VCRI.

For NSF FastLane and NIH eRA Commons registrations, please contact Lyn Milliken at lyn.milliken@colorado.edu.

For NASA, we use the NSPIRES system for proposal submission.

You must register through NSPIRES and use an @colorado.edu email address for the primary email on your registration.

After you register, an email will be sent to an OCG staff member to approve your registration. OCG’s primary contact for NSPIRES registrations and questions is Lyn Milliken.

The Principal Investigator starts the proposal in NSPIRES and completes the proposal requirements, including uploading required attachments. Your Proposal Analyst will enter the budget.  

When ready, you will need to “Lock” your proposal. Your Proposal Analyst will then review the proposal for anything that might prevent submission or review. When everything is complete, your Proposal Analyst will submit your proposal through the NSPIRES system.

No, Investigators do not need to register for Grants.gov or SAM.  CU Boulder is registered as an institution in both systems. OCG staff are registered users of Grants.gov and have the authority to submit all proposals on behalf of the University.

To register a new account in Research.gov/FastLane, or change the institutional affiliation of your existing Research.gov/FastLane account to CU, please email Lyn Milliken.

If you can’t remember your current Research.gov/FastLane password, but it has not expired, contact your assigned OCG proposal analyst or Lyn Milliken, and they can send it to you if we have it on file.

If Research.gov/FastLane requires you to change your password after logging in, follow the directions given to you on the screen to change the password, and then send the new password to your Proposal Analyst and/or Lyn Milliken, so we can update our records.

If your Research.gov/FastLane password has expired, go to Research.gov and click “Log In,” then “Forgot Password.” Enter your NSF ID number (if you don’t remember it, contact yyour Proposal Analyst or Lyn Milliken and we can look it up for you) and click “Send Temporary Password.” An email will be sent to the address NSF currently has on file containing instructions on how to reset your password. Passwords must contain between 8 and 20 characters, from at least three of the following four categories:

• Upper-case letters
• Lower-case letters
• Numbers
• One of these special characters: # & % ! @ ( )

You cannot re-use any of the previous six passwords for your account. After 10 unsuccessful login attempts, your account will be locked. It may take 30 minutes or longer for the new password to propagate through all of NSF’s systems, so plan ahead and do not attempt a password change while on deadline for a proposal submission. Once you have changed your password, please email it to your Proposal Analyst and/or Lyn Milliken, so we can update our records.

Research.gov provides both a password reset guide (including screen captures of all the various stages in the process) and an FAQ page about the process. If you need additional assistance beyond the information contained in those documents, contact your Proposal Analyst or Lyn Milliken.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is the lead scientist on a research project and has primary responsibility for the design, execution and management of the project.

Co-PI (Co-Principal Investigator) and Co-I (Co-Investigator) designations may be used when multiple Investigators are permitted on a project. Co-PIs/Co-Is are typically considered Senior/Key Personnel and play a central role in the project.

Sponsor definitions vary; carefully read the guidelines for each proposal before assigning project roles.

A Statement of Work or Scope of Work (SOW) is a document that outlines the project activities, deliverables, and timeline for completion. The SOW should clearly explain what tasks will be completed and by when. CU Boulder does not currently have a required template, but the document should be in narrative format. A Statement of Work Template is available for use if desired. 

If the award will be made directly to the Principal Investigator and not to the University, OCG does not typically need to be involved. This occurs most frequently with fellowships and consultant agreements. 

For consultant agreements, it is important that the University’s resources are not being used.

If you have any questions, contact your Proposal Analyst.

There is an available Facilities Template available to help create your Facilities document required by various sponsors (including NSF, NASA, NIH, and more). While it's use is not required, it is a helpful tool with the creation of your document. 

When multiple departments are involved in a proposal, indirect costs are normally shared between them. An agreement will need to be in place in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the respective Department Chair(s) or Institute Director(s) for any standing ICR splits, though this is not required at the proposal stage. 

For one-time ICR splits unique to a particular proposal, your Proposal Analyst will need Chair/Director email approval. 

For more information, see the Indirect Cost Recovery (ICR) Splits page.

Contact your Proposal Analyst for all NIH JIT requests. The Principal Investiagor will need to upload JIT information in eRA Commons according to the instructions provided by NIH.

Notify your Proposal Analyst when the files have been uploaded, and s/he will review and submit the information to NIH.

Yes, according to CU Boulder policy, we are required to budget for graduate student tuition if the graduate student is working during the academic year.

The Principal Investigator should determine the appropriate level of effort for all project personnel based on the expected time commitment required to complete their portions of the proposed project.

Effort should be expressed in terms of percent time on a monthly basis, e.g. “50% time, 3 months summer” or “10% time, 9 months AY.”

Some program guidelines may limit or set a minimum level of effort for certain project personnel so it is important to carefully read the guidelines.

Answer as provided on NIH Extramural Nexus

The project title must be no more than 200 characters long, including the spaces between words. The NIH Application Guide provides answers to this and many more application submission questions.

Answer as provided on NIH Extramural Nexus

Electronic systems can be a little finicky when presented with file names that include unexpected characters. Take care to follow the directions in the NIH Application Guide to ensure smooth processing of your application. PDF file names should be less than 50 characters, including punctuation and spaces. File names can contain any of the following characters: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore, hyphen, space, period, parenthesis, curly braces, square brackets, tilde, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, apostrophe, at sign, number sign, dollar sign, percent sign, plus sign, and equal sign. While single spaces are allowed between words or characters in the file name, do not use two or more spaces in a row between words or characters as this will cause errors. File names should NOT contain ampersands (“&”).

For more tips on creating your PDFs for your text attachments, visit the NIH PDF guidelines.

Your Proposal Analyst will help you develop your proposal budget. Visit the Proposal Development pages for more details and information on what your Proposal Analyst will need in order to get started.

Your budget justification should thoroughly justify all costs within your final budget and should be written in narrative format.

OCG has a Budget Justification Template and a Budget Justification Checklist to help you complete your justification.

The University has fiduciary responsibility as a steward of Federal and other sponsored funding that requires us to demonstrate on all proposals submitted and awards received that the costs budgeted are allocable, allowable, and reasonable. A Budget Justification:

1. Provides details that demonstrate adherence to these critical qualifications and assures that, if awarded, a submitted budget will be charging against costs meeting those standards.
2. May be required for prior approval of some costs, such as administrative salaries, as well as detailed justification for costs, including equipment, travel, participant support, materials and supplies, and the F&A rate.
3. Is used at the end of a project for award closeout to confirm that all costs charged are allowable and, as needed, had prior approval from the sponsor. 

Instances where a sponsor does not require a Budget Justification at proposal phase are rare; however, OCG and CCO do not require one if it is not required by the sponsor. In some cases, sponsors require additional budget information after the proposal has been submitted which could include a justification of costs.  In these instances the justification of applicable budget items will be requested from the PI, submitted to the sponsor as required, and will become a permanent part of the proposal record.

Even if a sponsor does not require a Budget Justification at proposal or award, costs supported by sponsored funding must still be allocable, allowable, reasonable, and abide by University policy. See the Cost Principles for more details.

Cost share essentially means that the University is “donating” money, employee effort, or tangible goods towards the direct costs of a sponsored research project. These contributions may be made by CU Boulder, the Prinicpal Investigator, or by other third parties, but all are a form of cost share. 

CU Boulder generally prohibits cost share unless it is specifically required by the sponsor or program guidelines, and/or is in the best interests of CU Boulder. Any quantified commitments (or quantifiable based on the details provided) are considered cost share, and should not be included in your proposal unless you have obtained official University approvals.

Official approvals must be in place before submitting proposals that include any form of cost share. Review CU Boulder’s Cost Share Policy and contact your Proposal Analyst with questions well in advance of the proposal submission deadline.

For detailed information about cost share at the proposal stage, see Proposals and Cost Share.

IDC Addendums are required whenever a sponsor limits indirect costs to a rate that is less than our federally negotiated rate.

IDC Waivers are required when full indirect costs are permitted by the sponsor, but the Principal Investigator does not want to request full indirect costs for reasons that can be fully justified.

Contact your Proposal Analyst to process either request.

If you have not yet received the official award document, contact your Proposal Analyst.

If the award has already been issued, contact your Grant or Contract Officer.

As a general policy, NSF limits the salary compensation requested in the proposal budget for senior personnel to no more than two months of their regular salary in any one year. CU Boulder considers our fiscal year as the one year period. This limit includes salary compensation received from all NSF-funded grants. If anticipated, any compensation in excess of the two months can be requested from NSF in the proposal with the required documentation and justification. NSF also provides CU Boulder rebudgeting authority to internally approve changes to personnel salary support, even if that results in support that exceeds two months.

If you want to propose and/or expense more than two months direct NSF salary support in any 12 month period, you should include the following applicable criteria to assist you in developing your justification, either at proposal or for a budget deviation after the award has been funded.

• The additional salary support is necessary to fulfill the research objective of the project
• The project will be negatively impacted by not supporting additional Principal Investigator paid effort
• How the costs are reasonable, directly benefit the project, and represent prudent use of the sponsor’s funds
• An explanation for other budgeted costs that will be reduced in order to compensate for the additional unbudgeted salary support

For further information, please visit the Procedural Statement on Budget Deviations and Revisions. 

Direct costs solely support and are traceable to a specific project. These costs may include laboratory supplies, research equipment, salary support for researchers and project directors, and travel. This is both the core of university research and where the bulk of the sponsor investment is spent.

Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs cover a portion of the infrastructure necessary to conduct research (these costs cannot be readily identified to a specific project). These costs include utilities such as light and heat, telecommunications, and the administrative functions necessary to comply with regulations and conduct business. View the F&A Costs Handout for information on what is included in F&A costs.

The compensation team in Human Resources can help identify market salary rates for various types of work in all fields, including Professional Research Assistants and Research Associates.  Send whatever information you have on the proposed position title(s), duties, and the date you need the information back in an email to ResFacHR@colorado.edu. A compensation consultant will follow up with you.

You can access your DEPA through the MyCU portal. Select the “CU Resources” tab, click on “Faculty Reporting & DEPA,” and follow the instructions provided. After completing a brief questionnaire, you can submit your DEPA.

Note that anyone responsible for the design, conduct, or reporting of the research must have a current DEPA on file in order to submit a proposal.

For detailed direction and further assistance, see the Disclosure of External Professional Activities (DEPA) Form webpage.

The general deadline for submitting an annual Disclosure of External Professional Activities (DEPA) is March 31 of each calendar year.

New employees should submit within 30 days from the date of hire.

Updates to the DEPA should occur within 30 days of a change in DEPA status.

Regardless of the March 31 general deadline, all DEPAs must have an approval status in the current calendar year prior to the release of new or continuing award monies, so DEPA submission may be requested prior to March 31.

Lead Principal Investigators on sponsored projects are ultimately responsible to see that anyone who is responsible for the design, conduct, or reporting of research is also in compliance with the University’s DEPA reporting requirements.

For more information about DEPA visit the Office of Research Integrity website.

Most approvals, such as Institutional Review Board (IRB), Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), and biohazardous materials, are generally not required at proposal stage but should be obtained as soon as possible.

NIH requests IACUC and IRB approvals at the JIT stage.

If awarded, no project award funds may be used until all approvals have been obtained from the appropriate compliance offices.

Contact the Office of Research Integrity to begin the approval process.

If you receive notice of an award, send this to ocg@colorado.edu. If the notice of award requests further documentation and/or a revised budget before the award may be issued, then please contact your Proposal Analyst.

All official award documents should be forwarded to ocg@colorado.edu for logging and a Grant or Contract Officer will be in touch with you soon. Please do not sign the award, as only certain individuals in the University are authorized to sign awards and an unauthorized signature could render the agreement null and void.

If your project requires any approvals, such as for the use of animals, human subjects, controlled substances or biohazardous materials, and you do not yet have approval, we highly recommend starting the approval process as soon as possible. For more information, see the Office of Research Integrity website.

All sponsored funding applications must be submitted through OCG. If you did not work with OCG at proposal stage and you receive an award, contact your Proposal Analyst as soon as possible. S/he will work with you to develop a proposal “after the fact,” which is required in order to issue a SpeedType.

Your proposal must include, at a minimum: budget (Excel format), Budget Justification (narrative format), Statement of Work, and Proposal Submission Request (PSR) form.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible for preparing progress reports. The Campus Controllers Office provides financial report information. Some sponsors require that an Authorized Organizational Representative sign and/or submit the report. Your Proposal Analyst can assist with this.

For NIH, once an RPPR is fully completed and checked for any errors, the PI should route the report to Betty Rasmussen, Senior Compliance Officer in OCG, for review and submission.

All No-Cost Extension requests must be submitted using the online NCE forms on the OCG website. See OCG's No-Cost Extensions page for more information.