Pre-Award Planning

 

The Hunter College Administration supports the preparation and submission of grant and contract proposals. Once a faculty or staff member has identified a potential funding source and decides to prepare a grant or contract proposal, it is strongly recommended that he/she notify the Department Chairperson, Dean and the Director of Research Administration.  Some externally-funded projects require additional space, modification of space, or matching funds.  There may be limitations on the number of proposals that can be submitted by Hunter College or the City University of New York.  Such hurdles should be cleared before the proposal writer invests too much time in the development of the grant application.

Please be aware that some funding opportunities are subject to review and approval from the Provost prior to submission.  Details can be found in the Hunter College Fundraising Policies for Faculty Cultivation and Solicitation of Grants and Gifts memo of December 10, 2007.

 It is recommended that the budget for a proposal be approved by the Dean and the Director of Research Administration or his designee, two weeks before the submission date.

Planning

It is strongly recommended that the proposal writer or principal investigator (PI) lay out a timetable for accomplishing the various tasks and gathering the required documents for submission of the proposal.  The advice of the staff of the Office of Research Administration is to double or triple the anticipated time.  The PI will frequently be dealing with collaborators or cooperating institutions that have competing priorities.  The PI must allow ample time to collect all the items needed for a proposal.  Hunter College will not sign a proposal involving another college or university unless there is a letter of participation from an appropriate official of that entity.

 Proposal writers must read the guidelines for the particular competition.  The PI must be aware of page limitations for the various sections of the proposal and the various idiosyncrasies of the chosen funding source.  Some agencies provide a maximum page limitation for the project description, curriculum vitae (CV), and appendices.  Some funding sources want the project abstract as a separate file.  One funding source may want a detailed spreadsheet for the budget, while another may want a budget narrative.  These are not details that can be left for the deadline day.

An electronic proposal submission does not give the proposal writer license to still be writing or editing an hour before the deadline.  The PI has to make sure the authorizing official is available and has not had his/her time taken by others who are also submitting proposals at the same time.