How to Submit a Proposal in POD 1

We are very happy to support you in the proposal submission process! We are working on unifying practices and expect these instructions to evolve. To make the experience go smoothly for all concerned, please adhere to the following guidelines:

1. As soon as you become aware of the opportunity and are able to work on some parts of the proposal, the POD 1 “Intent to Submit” form should be completed. To access the form, log in with your GW User ID followed by @gwu.edu and your standard GW email password. Please complete the form with as much detail as you know at that point (remember to include a link to the solicitation or attach the letter of invitation from the sponsor).  If you have any issues in completing the form, please reach out to the School Research Administrator (SRA) responsible for your school or department.
2. You will receive an email, appointing an SRA to coordinate your proposal with you and OVPR.
3. Work with your SRA to ensure a proposal is created in the myResearch system.
4. If the targeted sponsor has an online portal for proposal submission, start an application in that portal and, if possible, give the SRA access to that website (but please don’t share your user ID/password). The SRA you are working with can give you guidance specific to your sponsor.
5. You should work with the SRA to provide the proposal narrative, budget, budget justification and any other documentation required by the targeted sponsor.  While the PI is ultimately responsible for the provision of these documents, the SRAs can help in the production of the budget and budget justification, and compliance checking of the other documents, so long as the proposal preparation process is begun sufficiently in advance of the sponsor deadline.  Plan on providing this documentation to the SRA ten business days prior to the sponsor’s deadline to allow five business days for you and the SRA to finalize your proposal submission to meet the OVPR deadline (as per item 7).
6. Once you have completed all of the required documentation, and all of the required documentation is uploaded to myResearch, and, if applicable, the sponsor portal, your SRA will review the documentation for completeness and compliance with GW and sponsor policies.  The proposal will be evaluated against the OVPR checklist. [Login to GW is needed in order to view the checklist.]
7. Once the SRA is confident that everything is in an appropriate state, they will instruct you to begin routing in myResearch.  Routing must begin more than five full business days in advance of the sponsor deadline, to be compliant with OVPR policy.
8. Once you have indicated your approval of the proposal in myResearch, it will route, typically via your department chair, the Associate Dean for Research, and then to OVPR, who ultimately need to approve the proposal to allow submission.
9. Throughout the process, your SRA will be interfacing with a Sponsored Projects Administrator (SPA) based in OVPR. They will work with you to make changes required by the SPA.
10. In some cases, you may be required to submit the proposal through the online portal, in others, OVPR submits on your behalf.  Your SRA will instruct you on the appropriate method for your sponsor and proposal type.

Additional notes:

1. If your proposal spans multiple GWU schools and you are the lead PI, you will need to work with the SRA to complete a multi-school routing form and the SRA will coordinate with the other school(s) as needed. If you are not the lead PI on the proposal, the process listed in item 1. at the top of the page should still be followed and the SRA will coordinate with the lead school to complete a multi-school routing package.
2. If your proposal is collaborative, involves Multi-School routing, or includes subawards, you should plan to have substantially completed documentation twelve working days in advance of the sponsor deadline in order to allow time to interact with the sponsored research office of the other institution or the research administration of the other school.
3. If you are new to the proposal submission process at GW, it is wise to begin this process very early in order to allow time to make the necessary adjustments.
4. If you have a period of heavy travel, or other things which will make it hard to be responsive in the run up to your sponsor’s deadline, it is advisable to aim to complete submission early.  If this is the case, let your SRA know and they can coordinate with OVPR to submit by an agreed earlier deadline.
5. If your proposal requires cost sharing, mandatory or otherwise, you need to start the process as early as possible and follow the procedures laid down by your school to request cost share support.

If you have any questions, please reach out to ccasres@gwu.edu.

OVPR’s guidelines can be found here. Please note that you should use the POD 1 Intent to Submit form, rather than the OVPR one.