Reminder

Compliance protocols MUST be approved and linked in SeRA to a SPO project record prior to award acceptance. 

See ORA's Award Acceptance Resources for additional information.
Stanford
Office of Research Administration

PI Pre-Proposal Approval

Stanford requires the Principal Investigator (PI) on all sponsored project proposals to record their review, approval, and disclosure of any conflicts of interests prior to proposal submission to any external sponsor.  This is done through Stanford's Electronic Research Administration (SeRA) system via either a Proposal Intake Form (PIF), Pre-Proposal, or Proposal Development Routing Form (PDRF). 

How to Approve a SeRA Pre-Proposal as a PI

A SeRA PIF, Pre-Proposal or PDRF is usually initiated by a PI's administrator and routed to the PI for completion and approval/certification.  The PI will receive a SeRA system generated notification from the email address of sera-system@lists.stanford.edu. The email provides a details regarding the need for the PI's approval and a Go to Approval button which will direct the PI to the Pre-Proposal PDRF.

pre-proposal_email
Sample SeRA System email a PI receives prompting their Pre-Proposal approval action item.  Click on the Go to Approval button to navigate to the relevant Pre-Proposal within SeRA.

Alternatively, the PI can log into SeRA, and click on the blue Pre-Proposal ID# next to the appropriate Approve Pre-Proposal (PI) task listed under the Open SERA Tasks section on their SeRA My Projects landing page. 

approve_pre-proposal_my_projects_task
  • The screen will refresh to the Certification of Responsibilities page.  Review the Summary section for accuracy
approve_pre-proposal_certification_summary_section
  • If no there are no edits to be made, proceed to the Certification section, read the PI certification statement and record your review, approval, and disclosure of any of any conflicts of interests by clicking on the Certify & Approve button
  • If edits are need to be made to the proposal record, click on the Return for Edits button to either make the edits yourself, or return the Pre-Proposal for corrections and comments to your administrator.  Enter necessary comments, then click Return for Edits. 
approve_pre-proposal_certification

NOTE: If you are invited to submit a full proposal, a "Proposal - New" will need to be initiated in SeRA and updated with the full proposal details. This will require full approval routing at that time.

  • A confirmation message will display when the PI approval process has been completed
approve_pre-proposal_confirmation
  • Once a Pre-Proposal is approved or returned for edits, you will be returned to your SeRA landing page and will no longer see the Pre-Proposal pending your approval under your Open SERA Tasks.  

What Happens Next

  • To view the status and current assignee of the approved or returned Pre-Proposal, click on My Pipeline on the left-hand menu of your SeRA landing page.
pre-proposal_my_pipeline
  • To view additional Pre-Proposal routing details, click on the blue Pre-Proposal ID# hyperlink, and scroll to the bottom of the Transaction Home page, to the Task History section.
pre-proposal_status_task_hx

Need further SeRA assistance? Have questions, feedback, or are experiencing other issues? Please submit a HelpSU ticket to the SeRA Support Team and a SeRA Support Analyst will contact you shortly.

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