Proposal Preparation Resources
At minimum, all Stanford sponsored project proposals must include: 1) a statement of work (SOW), 2) a budget, 3) a budget justification and 4) institutional endorsement from either the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) or the School of Medicine Research Management Group (RMG).
Most sponsors require proposals to include additional information and documents with specific formatting requirements, including but not limited to: biographical sketches and current and pending (other) support for key personnel, facilities and other resource information, references cited, a project abstract etc.
To ensure a proposal successfully passes a sponsor’s intake and administrative review process and can be advanced for scientific review, it is critically important that those preparing sponsored research proposals carefully review and adhere to the sponsor guidelines for their specific submission.
The Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) or School of Medicine Research Management Group (RMG) are the authorized institutional offices which submit proposals/applications on behalf of Stanford investigators. All proposals must have a Stanford Electronic Research Administration (SeRA) proposal record in the form of a Proposal Intake Form (PIF) or Proposal Development Routing Form (PDRF). In some instances a Pre Proposal may be submitted.
The SeRA PIF and PDRF must be completed with uploaded documents and routed for the appropriate approvals for each department. OSR or RMG approval of all proposals/applications and the PDRF is required prior to submission of proposals/applications to potential funding entities.
| Who does what? | Pre Award Roles and Responsibilities - School/Department and OSR |
| Where can I find funding opportunities? | Click here to learn more about internal, external and limited submission funding opportunities. |
| What's my deadline? | Stanford's Internal 5 Day Proposal Deadline Policy & FAQ clarifying Internal 5 day Proposal Deadline Policy |
| How do I keep track of all this? | Leverage the OSR Solicitation Checklist |
| Applying to a foundation? | Refer to the Restricted Foundation List. Applications to restricted foundations require coordination with the Office of University Foundation Relations. |
| Looking for Stanford's DUNS #, legal name, tax status etc.? | Refer to Stanford Institutional Facts |
| Who can help? | Questions or concerns about a funding opportunity’s guidelines and/or a sponsor portal or system? Please contact the Client Advocacy & Education Team. We’re here to help! |
| Who else can help? | Stanford Research Development Office (RDO) Resources - RDO is a unit under VPDoR that aims to strengthen collaborative or strategic research, scholarship, and creative activities by helping to set PIs up for sponsored research funding success through project-opportunity alignment, early preparation, and proposal development support. |
| Who else can help? | Within the School of Engineering Blythe Nobleman, Senior Research Development Manager, provides SoE faculty with support for identifying funding opportunities, concept development, best practices in proposal preparation; writing, developing and editing proposals throughout the initial planning phases until final submission. Learn more about SoE Research Development & Proposal Editing here. |
| Who else can help? | The School of Medicine Proposal Development Office (PDO) team helps faculty members and teams across the School of Medicine as they pursue funding and partners for their transformative biomedical research. |