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Office of Research and Innovation
Research Administration and Compliance

Timely Proposal Submission Policy

Statement of Need

The Office of Sponsored Programs endeavors to advance the research, education and service missions of the university by supporting its colleges, programs, centers and institutes in the timely and compliant application for and administration of external resources. While Sponsored Programs staff are dedicated to enabling proposals and awards to meet sponsor deadlines and expectations, recent incidents of documents requiring review and signature by Sponsored Programs with extraordinarily short lead times — sometimes less than one hour — have placed proposals in jeopardy with unacceptable frequency.

Policy

To ensure all proposal materials can be reviewed, completed and corrected to meet sponsor deadlines, Sponsored Programs must require the following:

  • Letters of intent, cover pages and other proposal-specific forms must be received by Sponsored Programs (currently via the PINS system) no less than one business day* before signature or electronic approval is required. The use of “Rush” processing is appropriate for items submitted to Sponsored Programs two full business days or less prior to the submission deadline.
  • Certifications, representations and solicitation documents requiring review of terms should be forwarded to SPS@ncsu.edu as soon as a need for them is recognized; at minimum, no less than two full business days prior to the submission deadline.
  • Certifications requiring assessment by other divisions and offices — such as Conflict of Interest, Environmental Health and Safety, and Equal Opportunity and Equity — often require additional time. Please plan accordingly.
  • Agreements other than grant awards with the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) and similar terms are not eligible for “Rush” processing. Please provide documentation to support sponsor deadlines/expectations and other special considerations. Sponsored Programs will make every reasonable effort to accommodate these.
  • On very rare occasions, an opportunity will arise that truly requires a same-day response and was not known to the researchers, department or college previously. In those instances, the college research office (CRO) will forward documentation of that circumstance to the director of Sponsored Programs, copying their associate dean for research (ADR) and SPS@ncsu.edu — immediately and in parallel with electronic (Rush PINS) routing. This does not guarantee that Sponsored Programs will be able to accommodate the exception.

The guidance provided here is for CROs. CROs may have different internal deadlines to ensure adequate time to review proposal documentation before proposals are submitted to the sponsor or routed to Sponsored Programs.