Proposal Preparation Resources

Please note: If you submit a proposal before receiving all required internal approvals, the University reserves the right to withdraw the proposal or not accept an award if, upon review, the proposal is found to contain terms with which the University cannot comply.

USU’s Internal Deadline for Proposal Submission

All proposals for grants, contracts, and agreements must be submitted to the Sponsored Programs Office (SPO) for review, approval, and routing via Kuali Research PRIOR to SPOs’ submission to the funding sponsor.

All proposals should be submitted to SPO for review a MINIMUM OF FOUR full working business days prior to the sponsors deadline. (Weekends and USU’s recognized holidays are not considered working business days, therefore additional time should be included for the review, routing and approval process when weekends and holidays occur during the proposal submission process.) Sponsored Programs cannot ensure a full review and successful submission of proposals that do not comply with the four (4) working business days requirement. 

The four days provided are for review and approval by SPO. An additional 1-2 days should be allowed to route the proposal for departmental and college approvals. As recommended by the Vice President for Research, sufficient time should be allocated  for the review and approval process to be completed and the final version of the application ready to submit to the sponsor a minimum of four working business days prior to the funding sponsor’s deadline.

Applications that have subcontracts, cost share, consultants, etc. require additional forms. Collecting these forms can require additional time to complete. Plan accordingly so that the review and submission process can be completed in a timely manner and within the internal deadline time frame as described above.

Federal sponsors suggest that electronic submissions (grants.gov, FastLane, etc.) occur no later than two working days prior to the deadline to ensure proper transmission. No tolerance is given for server or application errors to last-minute proposal submitters by any federal sponsor. Plan accordingly to comply with the four (4) full working business days requirement for SPO review.


All proposals including electronic applications, mailed paper applications, and emailed applications are to be submitted to the sponsor by SPO as the Authorized Organizational Representatives (AOR).

All proposals submitted to SPO must be entered into the Kuali Research system and be submitted to routing containing, at a minimum, the following items:

  • A detailed budget entered into the Development Proposal module in Kuali.
  • A budget narrative/justification uploaded to the attachment section in Kuali.
  • A Statement of Work (Technical and/or scientific project narrative documents) uploaded to the attachment section in Kuali.
  • If proposal is in response to a solicitation a copy of the RFP, RFA, etc. needs to be uploaded to the attachment section in Kuali.
  • Other items as required for the proposal (e.g., cost share commitment forms, subrecipient commitment forms and supporting documents, consultant confirmatory letters, etc.) uploaded to the attachment section in Kuali.

More Resources for Preparing Proposals

NOTE: SPO hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Regardless of the sponsor’s deadline time for submission, final versions of proposals need to be sent/released to SPO to allow sufficient time for review and submission before 5:00 p.m.