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Pre-Award Procedures

The Routing Sheet must be completed for all external proposal.  Principal Investigators/Project Directors are responsible for submitting the complete form with a complete proposal to ORSP. The form should be signed by the PI, Department Chair, and College/School Dean before it comes to ORSP. Neatly handwritten routing sheets are acceptable.

Routing Sheet
Routing Sheet

Rates and Budgets Guidelines provides basic information on fringe rates, indirect cost rates, and salary guidelines to follow when preparing budgets.

Budget templates automatically calculate salaries, fringe amounts, indirect costs, and annual increases. Use the budget template with full indirect costs if the sponsor allows for MSU's federally negotiated rate. If the allowable indirect cost rate is less, use budget template with variable indirect costs. Please call ORSP if you need any assistance with these spreadsheets. MSU Institutional Information contains much of the information needed on proposal cover sheets such as tax identification and DUNS numbers, institutional official information, and information on MSU statistics and history. Graduate Assistant Allocation information outlines the procedure for applying for or reappointing a Graduate Assistant through an externally funded research grant. 

Scientific Misconduct gives guidelines and procedures regarding allegations of misconduct in research.

Grants.gov Submission Policy: All grants.gov submissions must be received and verified by the grants.gov system. This process may take up to 24 hours and unverified proposals can be rejected for being late. In order to give ORSP sufficient time to complete and check the grants.gov submission, all materials must be submitted to ORSP 48 hours ahead of the deadline. ORSP cannot guarantee timely submissions if this procedure is not followed.

Timeline for Preparing and Submitting a Proposal

Days to Deadline Tasks
30-90 days
  • Review Program Announcement, guidelines and other materialPrepare outline or draft of Program or Research PlanOrganize outside collaborations and make arrangements for non-MSU funding
  • Discuss personnel commitments and matching requirements with chair, dean and ORSP
25-30 days
  • Discuss general budget development with ORSP
20-25 days
  • Prepare preliminary budget for Year 1 and submit to ORSP for preliminary approval
  • Share proposal draft with colleagues and make revisions
15-20 days
  • After preliminary approval is received from ORSP, revise Year 1 budget and prepare budget justification
  • Submit proposal draft and budget justification to ORSP for compliance check and comments
5-15 days
  • Incorporate ORSP comments and revisions into final version of the proposalRoute proposal to chair, dean and ORSP for approvals
  • If received within this time frame, ORSP will arrange for copying and physical submission of proposal
2-5 days
  • ORSP does final review and arranges for delivery of proposal to sponsor
  • If this is an electronic submission, allow an extra day

It is always fine to work ahead of these deadlines.
Call ORSP (extension 4128) at any time with questions or concerns.

Links to Grant Writing Guides