Project Lifecycle

Find Funding

The Office of Research offers many resources to find funding suited to your research proposal:

• Fundamentals Newsletter - Sign up to receive it by email.
• Pivot Funding Opportunities Database - PIVOT maintains a database of grants, fellowships, and other funding information from public and private, domestic and international sources. 
• Consultations - Meet with Strategic Research Initiatives team, to discuss funding strategies for particular research projects at any stage in the proposal development process.
• Funding Searches - Strategic Research Initiatives can conduct one-time funding searches for specific research projects. Contact Kelly Pillsbury with information about your research to receive a targeted listing of possible funding opportunities.

Prepare Proposal

Proposal Development, isn't just about writing the grant, it's prep-work; making sure you have everything in place for a successful submission. Here's a few things to consider:

Strategic Research Initiatives Resources

Strategic Research Initiatives works to make sure that faculty have available all the tools for success – from funding source information, proposal review, and writing workshops – to mock panel reviews and site visit preparation for strategic Campus initiatives. 

Submitting a Proposal

• UCSB is structured with traditional academic departments as well as a variety of research units. The staff in the departments and research units are the primary point of contact for a PI in the proposal submission process. These staff, called liaisons, work with the Office of Research to assist you in the preparation and submission of grant proposals. As a PI, you often have a choice whether to submit a proposal through your home department or through affiliated research units.
• For science and engineering, PIs usually have a choice whether to submit a proposal through their home department or through an affiliated research unit.
• For the social sciences, most proposals should be submitted through the Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research (ISBER). 
• For humanities and fine arts, most proposals should be submitted through the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC). See information about submitting a grant through the IHC.
• If you are uncertain about where to submit your proposal, you should discuss the options with your department chair.

Proposal Writing Guides

The following resources may be helpful to PIs/PDs planning a proposal submission

• National Science Foundation Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide
• NIH Grant Writing Tips Sheet
• NIH Tips for New NIH Investigators
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – Strategy for NIH Funding is an excellent resource for all NIH applicants
• Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal by S. Joseph Levine, Ph.D., Michigan State University – helpful hints and examples for major sections of a proposal; includes useful links to other proposal-writing sources
• Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Grantsmanship Tutorial – described as a quick, no-nonsense guide that most faculty investigators, regardless of discipline, would find useful
• Jacob Kraicer: The Art of Grantsmanship
• The Foundation Center: Proposal Writing Short Course

Sponsored Projects Review and Submission

As soon as you start to consider submitting a research proposal, contact your department contract and grant liaison and provide them the proposal application guidelines (i.e. the solicitation or proposal call).  The liaison will assist you with proposal preparation, including budget creation and routing the proposal documents to your Sponsored Projects team for pre-submission review and institutional endorsement.  The Office of Research assigns a Sponsored Projects team, consisting of an officer (lead) and an analyst, to each UCSB department and unit that administers contracts and grants.  Sponsored Projects team assignments can be found here.

Sponsored Projects Review Process

Sponsored Projects reviews proposals for compliance with University, state, and federal policies, practices, and regulations.  At the time of proposal submission, the Sponsored Projects team also represents to the sponsor that the proposal is compliant with all applicable requirements.  For proposals submitted at least seven business days before the deadline, Sponsored Projects will also review the proposal for compliance with substantive sponsor requirements, such as page limits, eligibility requirements and accuracy and completion of all required proposal components.

Click here for more information on Sponsored Projects proposal review and submission policy.

Submission

Depending on the funding agency, either you or Sponsored Projects will submit the proposal. For the vast majority of funding agencies, Sponsored Projects is responsible for final submission of the proposal to the sponsor and has access to the electronic proposal submission sites. In rare cases, only the researcher has access to the electronic proposal submission site. For these cases, Sponsored Projects must still review and endorse the submission before the researcher submits the proposal. If the funding agency requires hard copies, it is the responsibility of the department to submit the proposal.

Most commonly used proposal submission systems:

• NSF Fastlane Account Set-Up
• NIH eRA Commons Account Set-Up
• Cayuse Account Set-Up

Accept Award

The authority to negotiate and accept an award on behalf of the University has been delegated from the Regents to the Chancellor and the Chancellor has delegated this authority to Sponsored Projects.

Award Negotiation

Once a proposal is selected for funding, Sponsored Projects will review the resulting award document to assure that there are no terms that would either violate UC policies or hamper the researcher's ability to carry out the project. Potentially problematic terms include those that may affect academic freedom, equal access to education, or open publication, or may impose unreasonable or burdensome administrative requirements, such as unusually frequent or voluminous reporting requirements. If the award contains problematic terms, Sponsored Projects will try to negotiate with the sponsor to remove them, working with the principal investigator and the administrating department. Once the award terms are acceptable, Sponsored Projects confirms that all compliance issues are cleared (such as animal use or conflict of interest) and if so, will accept the award on behalf of the Regents. See more information on negotiating the award.

Manage Project

Specific reporting and deliverable requirements are typically set forth in the sponsor's award documents or in policies or documents incorporated by reference. Read More...

Bring to Market

Sponsored research agreements funded by companies, including industry flow-through contracts, are managed by the Industry Contracts team in the UCSB Office of Technology & Industry Alliances. Read More...

Research Integrity

The Office of Research provides broad oversight, resources, and education for compliance issues relating to the conduct of research at UC Santa Barbara. Research activities are governed by a number of regulatory and compliance committees imposed by federal and state laws. A foundational aspect of a successful research project, Research Integrity covers a broad range of activity from general guidelines about conducting research responsibly to specific regulations governing a type of research (e.g., animal research). Please visit the links below for more information on specific topics.