Proposal Development as Project Management�Planning, Partnerships, and Critical Paths to Successful Submission

H. Christopher Frey

August 2026

New Faculty Orientation Workshop

Learning Objectives

• At the end of this session, participants should be able to:
• Recognize common proposal components.
• Identify proposal elements that require institutional review or approval.
• Recognize activities that create critical-path constraints.
• Estimate realistic lead times for common proposal activities.
• Understand that sponsor deadlines are not the only deadlines.
• Recognize risk factors that can lead to delayed or unsuccessful submission.

Illustrative Event Sequence for a Proposal

Not all proposals have all of these elements, not all possible elements are shown here, and the sequencing could vary

Core Technical Elements of a Proposal

• Core Technical Elements
• Project Summary / Abstract
• Project Description / Research Strategy / Narrative: background, hypotheses, methodology, and work plan
• References Cited / Bibliography:
• Personnel and Administrative Documents
• Biographical Sketches.
• Current and Pending Support.
• Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources.
• Agency-Specific Compliance and Special Plans
• Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Plan
• Special Regulatory Approvals: human subjects, clinical trials, vertebrate animal welfare
• Broader Impacts / Relevance Statements
• Subaward Statement(s) of Work
• Letters of Support

Core Budget and Terms and Conditions

• Budget & Justification
• Direct Costs
• F&A / Overhead
• Cost Share / Matching
• Justification.
• Strategic Partnerships (Public-Private & Industry)
• Mechanisms: Specific tracks (e.g., NSF GOALI, SBIR/STTR) require formal industry collaboration and commercialization roadmaps.
• Allocation of Rights: Mandatory pre-award agreement defining who owns what intellectual property before work begins.
• Global & Legal Compliance (Security & Trade)
• Research Security: Mandatory disclosure of all foreign affiliations, gifts, and talent programs (strict federal scrutiny).
• Export Control (ITAR/EAR): Strict trade laws governing defense items and dual-use commercial tech.
• Limiting terms and conditions (e.g., publication rights)

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Pre-Award Roles and Responsibilities

• Faculty: develop technical content, include scope that informs the budget, and identify key partnerships and other resource needs (e.g., equipment)
• Departmental staff: assist in preparing budgets, budget justifications, coordination, routing support.
• CoE’s Office of Research Administration (ORA): proposals are compliant with University, Federal, State, and sponsor policies. ORA cannot review a proposal until it is released by the department.
• NC State’s office of Sponsored Programs and Regulatory Compliance Services (SPARCS) assists with proposals that require Terms, Conditions, and special negotiations.
• Departments have the responsibility to submit accurate and timely proposals to meet deadlines.

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Pre-Award Timeline

Planned COE 8/2 day policy

SPARCS 5/2 day policy

Business Days

to Deadline

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

8 Days: 

• Ensuring PI-eligibility status for PIs and CoPIs and senior person eligibility status for senior persons, or securing an exception when required.
• Ensuring compliance for all senior persons, such as the new Research Training requirement
• Review the solicitation and sponsor communication. 
• Address any compliance items, such as securing university-level approval for Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCOI), OTL approval for Background IP,  addressing Export Control items, SPARCS approval review of T&Cs, or securing a proposal-stage agreement like an IP Management Plan. 
• Ensure the submission mechanism and who has the authority to submit, and ensure they have access
• Confirming Limited Submission endorsement, when applicable.
• Review and address the budget breakdown and justification for compliance.
• Confirming F&A when less than the federally negotiated rate agreement, or securing the required waiver.
• Confirming cost share requirements and commitments, in addition to securing appropriate documentation for the final proposal.

2 Days:

• Review the final proposal to ensure it's compliant with the solicitation
• Ensure final proposal is compliant with sponsor, university, state, & federal guidelines.
• Review sponsor required forms and secure signatures.
• Ensure no errors within the sponsor portal, when applicable.
• Address any submission issues and resubmit it if necessary
• Either the college submits the final proposal or works with SPARCS to ensure submission or endorsement.
• Ensure PINS is complete, secure all approval levels, and the college approves PINS

The COE 8/2 Policy

• Eight (8) full business days prior to the sponsor due date:
• The minimum proposal record in PINS must be released to the College of Engineering by the Dept/Unit for review. It must contain:
• RFP/FOA/NOFO
• Budget spreadsheet – free of errors
• Budget justification – free of errors
• Cost share documentation (if applicable)
• F&A considerations (if applicable)
• Any representation or certification forms and other administrative documents that require College or university signatures or input
• Subaward documents (if applicable)
• Two (2) full business days prior to the sponsor due date:
• The College must receive the final proposal with permission for the College/University AOR to sign/submit

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Managing a Schedule: Some Concepts

• Critical Path: The longest sequence of dependent tasks that decides the shortest total time to finish a project (actual time cannot be less than this)
• Slack (Float): The amount of time a task can slip without delaying the project finish date.

What Often Requires Extra Lead Time?

• Subawards
• Cost Share
• Reduced F&A
• Equipment
• Other facilities, space
• Regulatory requirements (e.g., IRB, IACUC)
• Industry sponsors
• International collaborators
• PI Eligibility
• Limited submissions
• Unusual sponsor terms

These items often require conversations outside your group.

Example: PI Eligibility

• I want a postdoc, graduate student, or undergraduate student to be PI or Co-PI. Can I do that?:
• Some positions are not automatically PI eligible
• Requests require review and approval
• COE endorsement is needed before university approval
• Supporting documentation is required
• Student approvals are generally limited to programs that specifically require that a student apply as the PI, such as specific fellowships
• Requests should be submitted well before proposal deadlines (at least 12 business days before sponsor deadline)
• Submit well enough in advance to give yourself time to pivot if you don’t get the answer you hoped for

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Example: Cost Share

• The university policy is generally to provide cost share only if required by the sponsor, at the minimum required level
• For “small” cost share requirements, typically faculty academic year released time, and the associated fringe benefits and unrecovered F&A, can be counted
• Startup funds may be eligible
• Subawardees are generally expected to contribute to cost share
• In-kind contributions from vendors may count if they are not standard academic discounts
• Contributions can be sought from a department: consult dept. head
• Contributions may be possible from the college, university: discuss well in advance with Associate Dean for Research (who expects all of the above)

The more complicated the cost share plan, the earlier the discussion should begin

Example: Facilities & Administrative Costs (F&A)

• Standard federally negotiated rate.
• Some sponsors have published caps that apply to all applicants for a given program or sponsor.
• Published caps generally do not require special approval.
• Reductions below allowable rates may require institutional review.
• Industry and foreign sponsor situations often require additional scrutiny.

What is F&A

F&A costs consist of the construction and maintenance costs of laboratories and high-tech facilities; energy and utility expenses; and safety, security, and other government-mandated expenses. Research is impossible without the infrastructure investments that F&A costs create and sustain

Example: Subawards and Equipment

• Subawards often require:
• scope of work
• budget
• budget justification
• institutional approvals
• Equipment often requires:
• Quote
• Specifications
• Justification

• If you are a subawardee to a “direct” sponsor, they will ask for your input ahead of their deadline:
• scope of work
• budget
• budget justification
• institutional approvals
• Your equipment cost needs to be part of your subaward budget when due to direct sponsor.
• Originating and direct sponsor terms and conditions flow down to you

Direct Sponsor: source of funds to your subaward

Originating Sponsor: source of funds to the direct sponsor

Other organizations may not follow your timeline

The “80/20 rule”�The Complications are Usually in the Exceptions

• While the “80/20” rule is really a heuristic and not an empirical rule, it is often demonstrated in the preaward process
• Most proposals may be “straightforward”
• However, the “edge cases” may have terms and conditions that require extra time and an institutional process for acceptance of limitations or risk. Examples:
• Will you accept a publication restriction?
• Will you and your students comply with a specific information security requirement?
• Will you or the dept accept risk from currency fluctuations for international sponsors

Submission Systems

• Submission systems may discover problems late:
• Project description is allowed to be 15 pages with a specific font size, but submitted version has an extra line on page 16
• Or, Current and Pending Support is missing key information
• Or, an attestation is not checked
• (and so on).
• Submission systems may not be working:
• Your proposal is not the only one being submitted at 5:00 pm EDT on a Friday afternoon.
• Submission attempt at 3:47 pm
• The system is down. Call wait times to the help desk are 2 hours.
• The sponsor is not going to make an exception later

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Most Proposal PreAward Problems Are Not Technical Problems

• Proposal delays usually result from:
• Missing approvals
• Missing partner documents
• Unresolved cost share
• PI eligibility questions
• Compliance issues
• Sponsor-system validation errors

Not from writing the technical narrative (of course, the success of your proposal with the sponsor depends on the technical narrative and all of the other elements)

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Three Rules for Success

• Start earlier than you think you need to
• Engage departmental and college staff support early
• Recognize that unusual situations will need extra time.

Exercise: (for groups of 3-4)

Will this proposal make it out the door?

Scenario: Proposal is due in 30 days. It includes one subaward, one $150K equipment item, sponsor limits F&A to 20% for all proposals to a program for which the RFP is available online, and the sponsor requires 10% mandatory cost share.

Prompt: Who do you need to contact? What must be approved? What documentation is required? Which items should start immediately? Which activities are the critical path?

Your Answer: Please prepare a timeline that shows the key milestones/events for preparing this proposal.

Exercise: (for groups of 3-4)

Will this proposal make it out the door?

Surprise Events:

How does your answer change if any of the following “surprises” occur?

• Surprise A: Your subaward colleague (PI at your subaward institution) just found out their university needs 10 business days to get institutional approval of their materials.
• Surprise B: The key salesperson at the equipment vendor is working onsite on an emergency basis with a customer and will need another 7 days to get you a quote.
• Surprise C: Actually, the cost share requirement is not mandatory, but the program manager would like for you to demonstrate 25% in voluntary cost share because they say reviewers will appreciate that. However, the RFP indicates that the technical review criteria do not include any budgetary considerations.