January 8, 2009
OSP implements new two-day advance deadline for all proposals
The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) has announced a new policy requiring that the final version of all grant and contract applications be in the office two or more days before the deadline — or the applications will not be approved and submitted to the sponsor by OSP.
This new policy will become effective for sponsor deadlines occurring on or after Jan. 22.
For example, proposals with the deadline of Thursday, Jan. 22, must be received in final form by OSP by noon on Tuesday, Jan. 20, or they will be returned to the PI and department contact. This is a revision to OSP’s current policy and applies to all paper and electronic proposals.
“Most major universities have already established early hard deadlines,” said John Slattery, vice dean of research and graduate education in the School of Medicine and professor of pharmacology and medicine. “The UW has held off doing so and OSP has done everything possible to maintain as much flexibility and support as possible. However, the changes made at the federal government in electronic submission processes now make setting advance deadlines an absolute necessity,”
This two-day submissions deadline is being implemented to address bottlenecks in the grants.gov portal that are beyond the control of OSP. Nationally, grants.gov accepts only 160 proposals per hour. Additionally, federal grants will soon require all proposals to be submitted as Adobe documents rather than using PureEdge software, and the Adobe documents take longer en route. As a result, backlogs of many hours (and even overnight) are occurring after submission from OSP. In order to ensure that proposals submitted from the UW are received on time, it is necessary to implement this change in the UW’s grant deadline policy, Slattery said.
“Understandably, this will be a challenging transition for faculty initially, but it is necessary under the circumstances, and will benefit the quality of applications and success in funding in the long run,” said Vice Provost for Research Mary Lidstrom.
Click here to view the newly revised policy, the Grants Information Memorandum 19 (GIM 19). Additional information and FAQs can be found on OSP’s Web site.
Policy guidelines: Recommended submission times to allow for complete review by OSP
- Ten working days before the deadline: Final business and draft scope.
- Five working days before the deadline: Final business and final scope.
New Absolute Deadline Policy
- Two business days by noon before sponsor deadline (not including the sponsor deadline) — OSP will submit proposals. However, any received after that time will not be submitted by OSP.
All final proposals that are received by OSP two days (by noon) prior to the sponsor deadline, and are “ready to submit” will be submitted by OSP to the sponsor.
However, OSP can only ensure timely submission for those proposals received in final form five or more days prior to the sponsor’s deadline, due to the grants.gov system limitations. To ensure that sponsor deadlines are met, OSP highly recommends that proposals be submitted to them as early as possible.
OSP is offering training sessions and the opportunity to ask questions. The next training session will be Tuesday, Jan. 13, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the UW Tower, floor 22. Click here for detailed information about these sessions.
Additionally, the System to Administer Grants Electronically (SAGE) will remind users of the two-day deadline and new policy via e-mail notifications. E-mails currently sent to the PI, Admin & Budget Contact and eGC1 Creator have been updated to include information about the new policy.
If you have any questions regarding this new revision, your assigned OSP Administrator will be available to assist you.
