[photo] Submitting Fellowship or Grant Proposals

Submitting Fellowship or Grant Proposals

Targeting specific fellowship and grant opportunities. Begin with the Research Grantsline to determine which funding opportunities are available for the specific type of award you are seeking. The Research Grantsline is a searchable database of grant and fellowship opportunities of interest to faculty in the College of Arts & Letters. In addition, you may want to consult any of the additional search databases available on our website.

Consult funding guidelines. Once you have selected a particular funding opportunity to which to apply, acquire a set of the agency’s guidelines (online may be the quickest means to acquire the guidelines) and read them to make sure you are aware of the various parts required in the application. Do not hesitate to contact Ken or Laurie for assistance in locating and deciphering the guidelines.

Inform ISLA that you are going to apply for a fellowship or grant. Ken and Laurie are very willing to assist you with the process of applying for a fellowship or grant. They assist with over 200 proposals each year. However, it is very helpful if you give them advance notice of your intentions to apply for a fellowship or grant. Ideally, give them three to four weeks notice of your intention to apply.

Developing the budget. So many of the funding opportunities specify required items for the budgets. Please contact Ken or Laurie so that they can help you include these items and possibly exclude other items (such as indirect or overhead costs).

Reviewing proposals. Guidelines from most funding agencies are very specific and not following them to the letter may risk disqualification of your proposal by the agency. Given at least one week prior to the proposal deadline, Ken and/or Laurie will review your proposal. This can entail comparing the proposal against the guidelines, reviewing the proposal as a general reader, or reading the proposal for specific content and logic.

Routing proposals. When submitting proposals to funding agencies, you should route each of your proposals through ISLA. Ken and Laurie will draw up the required paperwork and route this paperwork and your proposal through the university system for signatures and approvals. The routing process should start at least one week in advance of the agency deadline and ISLA requires a near-final draft (at least) of the proposal to route with the paperwork. Click here for the ND Office of Research Proposal Routing Form and other relevant forms.

Note for fellowships and grants recovering salary money – in order for you to receive retirement benefits on the salary money obtained from a fellowship or grant, these funds must be routed through the university via a restricted grant account. In order to obtain a university account, you must route your proposal as described above rather than sending your proposal directly to the funding agency.

Submitting proposals. Once you have completed your proposal and it has been routed for signatures, Ken and/or Laurie will arrange for duplication (photocopying) and mailing of the proposal prior to the deadline. Typically, proposals are express mailed to funding agencies. ISLA will pay for the duplication and mailing costs associated with submitting the proposals to the agencies.