1. What to Expect, What is Expected, and How to Survive them
Proposal Reviews
What to Expect, What is Expected, and How to Survive them
Presented by:
Office of Sponsored Programs – Pre-award
March 2015

2. When do we go to OSP for review?
If at least one of the following applies:
Your proposal has a budget
Your proposal requires an authorized signature from a signing official
Your proposal is being submitted in response to a formal call for applications
We normally don’t need to review Letters of Intent (LOIs) but we do if either of the first 2 items above apply. COPs are not required for LOIs.
If you’re unsure, please always ask!

3. What if we are submitting a proposal through the Office of Institutional Advancement (OIA)?
Sponsors sometimes have special requirements, such as if the applicant institution must be a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. If you are submitting through OIA, you will work directly with that office and OIA will contact OSP about your proposal and provide us the items for our review.

4. The Purpose of Proposal Reviews
There are standards that must be enforced:
Institutional policies
Sponsor policies
Federal government policies (when applicable)
Our job is to make sure the parts we review follow these policies and guidelines.
We genuinely want to help your PI and the institution get grant money.

6. Here’s what we want from you
signed Certificate of Proposal - latest version on OSP home page
Budget in the format as prescribed by the sponsor, with few exceptions
Budget Justification, if required by sponsor
copy of or a link to the sponsor’s Funding Opportunity instructions
If you have a subaward, we want its signed LOI to Establish Consortium, Statement of Work, and a copy of the F&A rate agreement (if applicable) in addition to the budget/justification.
If we’re a subaward, we need to know what form of signed approval our sponsor wants and we’ll need a Statement of Work in addition to the first four items above.
If something requires a signature from us, we need that completed form.
If there is a form that has institutional information on it, we need to review that, particularly if it mentions an Authorized Official, Grants Officer, Fiscal Officer, Signing Official, etc etc.

7. We should have these items at least THREE days before the deadline
We should have these items at least THREE days before the deadline. If we’re a subaward, this is THREE days before our sponsor wants it from our PI for its application. (Some other institutions’ OSPs have a 10 day deadline if you think you have it bad…)

8. Certificate of Proposal
Internal document showing approval
New version is mandatory as of January 1 – check our website to make sure you are using the most current version.

9. COP (cont’d)
Needs to be completed and signed by HSC faculty-level investigators who have effort and also their Chairs. If the PI is not faculty, he/she still has to sign. Dean’s signature not necessary.
Remember – the effort on the COP is based on time committed to project, regardless if salary is being requested.
Effort should be in whole percentages, not with decimals (e.g. 10%, not 10.5%; 2%, not 2.8%)

10. COP (cont’d)
The deadline date on the COP should be when our sponsor wants it from us, whether we are the prime submitter or a subaward (e.g. if UTSA is submitting an NIH grant for March 5 and they want the subaward documents from HSC by February 26, then the deadline on the COP should be 2/26, not 3/5).
The majority of this information is entered into PeopleSoft so it is important and it does matter.
Does not get submitted to sponsors
We may not always provide you feedback if the COP is wrong. Typically we will just fix our copy when we log out and we expect that you will fix yours once our review is completed.

11. Basic Budget
Institutional Base Salary (as of now, should not include augmentation or longevity pay)
Fringe Benefits
26% faculty; 30% staff; 10% students
Effort
Other Direct Costs (e.g. Supplies, Travel, Consultants)
Equipment and Tuition
F&A (aka facilities & administrative costs, indirects)

12. Budget (cont’d)
The budget should only be submitted to us in one format, normally in the format as dictated by the sponsor.
If we’re a subaward, find out from your direct sponsor what format they want ahead of time, whether it’s in Cayuse (if they also use Cayuse), on PHS 398 forms, in a spreadsheet or on the SF424 Subaward Budget Attachment forms.
NIH Modular Budgets – we require an internal budget as the submitted budget has little detail. The minimum we ask for is the HSC Internal Form Page 5 Budget form, which is on our website.

13. Budget (cont’d)

14. Budget Justification Usually required with all applications
Please make sure the justification matches what is on the budget. For us, this is as important as your budget adding up correctly.
If your proposal is with the NIH, the effort must be written in terms of calendar months (or calendar months & percentages preferably for those not full-time HSC). For most other sponsors, just percentages are preferred.

15. Form Pages with OSP Info
Where there is room, ALWAYS write out the institution name in full, “The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio”. An acceptable abbreviated version would be “The Univ of TX Health Science Center at San Antonio”.
Normally anything that’s Authorized Official, Grants Officer, Signing Official, Fiscal Officer, will be “Chris G. Green, CPA; Director, Office of Sponsored Programs”.
Please do not use Chris’s personal address or direct phone number. Always use and for his contact information.
See our Useful Institutional Information page on our site.

17. (Or things that make you go “Hmm…”)
Sticky Wickets
(Or things that make you go “Hmm…”)

18. Sticky Wicket – F&A F&A (if the sponsor allows it on the budget)
Does the prime sponsor have an F&A rate stipulated in the instructions?
If not, what kind of sponsor is it? (e.g. federal or private)
If Federal: Per our DHHS-approved F&A rate agreement:
Modified total direct costs shall exclude equipment, capital expenditures, charges for patient care, student tuition remission, rental costs of off-site facilities, scholarships, and fellowships as well as the portion of each subgrant and subcontract in excess of $25,000.
On-campus vs. Off-campus (HSC owned/rented are on-campus; where is more than half of your part of the project taking place?)
Research vs. Public Service
If Private/Non-Federal: use 26% if F&A is allowed and sponsor does not have its own rate.
If Non-Federal, we normally take F&A on Total Direct Costs, including equipment, tuition, subawards, unless the sponsor has its own stipulations.
If you’re unsure what to use, please contact us. Sometimes we have to call the sponsor to double-check if it’s not clear.

19. Sticky Wickets – less than 100% appt’d faculty
HSC/VA Joint Appointed faculty and part-timers
When budgeting salary, only budget their actual HSC compensation rate based on their appointment percentage, not the salary as if they were 100% HSC.
(e.g. Dr. X has an HSC compensation rate of $50,000; 50% HSC appointment, annual salary if he were 100% is $100,000. You budget him with $50,000 base salary.)

20. Sticky Wickets (cont’d)
HSC/VA Joint Appointed faculty and part-timers (continued)
Effort for these types of employees should be written as “____ % of his/her _____% HSC appointment.” So for example, if an Assistant Professor/Research was part-time and requesting all of his allowable/available HSC effort, you would put “98% of his 20% appointment.”
HSC/VA Joint Appointed – the MOU blurb inserted into NIH proposals has been modified to make this clearer.
For proposals that require use of calendar months, use this example to calculate the effort: 10% effort of a 0.5 FTE 12 month appointment equals 0.6 (CY) person months (12 month appointment x 0.5 FTE x 10% effort = 0.6 CM)
Our Assistant Professor above would be 12 x .2 x .98 = 2.35 CM

21. Cayuse
Software program used to submit federal proposals to the sponsors. Available to all UTHSCSA employees on our website (HSC username/password to log in).
Preferable to downloading application package from grants.gov (autofill features, budget calculations, etc.)
Most federal proposals can be submitted using this; if you can’t find the opportunity, you can download it yourself or ask your OSP reviewer.
There is a Test version available; please use this if you want to play with the system. Only ‘intend-to submit’ proposals should be created in the live Cayuse version.
Cayuse instructions available on our website – upcoming training planned, revised instructions in the future

22. Cayuse (cont’d)

23. Quick Cayuse Tips
If you use the routing chain, please note that all of the form pages must be filled in (e.g. budget, key personnel) and the Budget Justification must be uploaded. You can route it without any other attachments at this point in time.
Before you route it, make sure there aren’t any form page errors that need to be corrected (e.g. radio buttons not clicked on, missing typed-in information). Click the Save icon, then Final Review and check the Errors/Warnings/Info before you route.

24. Cayuse Tips cont.
You do not need to retract the approval on an already-approved Cayuse proposal if you are only changing out attachments unless it’s the Justification. We do not get a notification when a proposal has been retracted. If you are changing form pages or the justification without our prior knowledge, please advise your proposal reviewer what changes you have made.
If after the proposal is submitted the PI wants to make changes, please allow us to submit the changed/corrected application. There is a process involved that if not done correctly, will snowball into a huge problem once the revised proposal gets to the eRA Commons (or other federal sponsor’s system).

25. What we ask of you…
Please review the sponsor’s instructions carefully. If you’re unsure of something, contact us. If you have a question for the sponsor, we will normally contact them for you unless it’s about the science of the project.
If you don’t agree with something, tell us! We’re human too and we make mistakes. Or we may know of a policy issue that you may not.

26. What we ask of you…(cont’d)
Please be patient if we don’t get back to you immediately, particularly for proposals that aren’t due for a week or so. For most of the year, there are deadlines just about every day and those proposals must get our immediate attention.
If after checking our Contact list you aren’t sure who should handle something, Provide as much detail as possible in your .

27. There are always exceptions…
As with anything, there are exceptions to the rule. -Sometimes a policy in place for a previous submission no longer exists or has changed. -Or we may have reviewed something incorrectly the first time and for the resubmission, we want to make sure it’s done right. -Or there was no time for a full review and we had to submit as-is and for the next proposal, we want to correct those issues.

28. Resources
Funding Opportunity instructions and sponsor website - some of them put out FAQs or general application instructions as well.
If using these particular application packages:
SF424 RR Guides (General, Fellowship, SBIR/STTR, Supplemental)
PHS 398 Guide
For Federal proposals: OMB Guidance, NIH Grants Policy Statement as applicable
OSP website
Your OSP proposal reviewer

29. After the proposal gets submitted…
Give yourself a pat on the back
Please be sure to us a copy of the complete, submitted proposal for our files within a week of the deadline unless we were involved in the actual submission (i.e. we clicked Submit) or if it was done in Cayuse. If COP was incomplete at time of review, forward us the completed/signed version ASAP.
Take a deep breath and get ready for the next deadline!