Proposal Preparation, Annual and Final Reports

Proposal Preparation

Official proposals by faculty to external funding sources must be submitted through the UMN Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA). The formal submission uses the MN - Grants Electronic Management Systems (MN-GEMS) to prepare the required submission information and compliance questions.

As of May 2023 the SPA guidance is that NSF applications should be submitted through Research.gov rather than Grants.gov. Research.gov is the NSF’s grant management system and provides easy access to research-related information and grants management services in one location. Research.gov is the modernization of FastLane and provides a greater access to federal research agencies' grants management services and streamlined functionality.

Deadlines

Proposals must be submitted for SPA's review by 9 a.m. three business days prior to the time the proposal must be submitted to the sponsor (e.g. an electronic proposal that must be received by the sponsor on Friday will be due at SPA by 9 a.m. Wednesday.)

Use the SPA Deadline Calculator to ensure that you are initiating your work with enough time for the process to be completed.

Chemistry finance staff members offer limited support for proposal preparation and submission. We provide assistance with budget development and MN-GEMS Funding Proposal (FP) preparation.

Chemistry Proposal Preparation Responsibility Matrix

Notify the Chemistry Finance and Payroll Services office that you will be submitting a proposal

Send information to your assigned Finance Professional on the agency solicitation, agency name, proposal title, due dates and all PI name(s). 

Create a budget

Use the Proposal Preparation file (a pre-formatted Excel spreadsheet) or have your Finance Professional create a budget for you. In order to do this, you will need to provide information about the types of expenses to be included as well as any target budget amounts. Make sure you let your finance professional know if there are matching requirements. Be aware that budgets developed using our Excel template may not exactly match the calculations of budgets when they are entered into MN-GEMS due to differences in rounding.

Faculty PI Responsibility

Faculty PIs are ultimately responsible for all scientific and administrative content on any proposal, using the provided information from finance staff as described on this page. Assembly of all documents, forms, their formatting and all entry or uploading to agency web portals is the responsibility of the PI. Institutional information needed to complete the administrative portion of grant proposals can be found in the Institutional Information file.

Funding Proposal (FP)

CHEM leadership requires that CHEM finance staff will initiate the Funding Proposal (FP); PIs must provide the following information before the process can be initiated:

• Title

• Start and End date

• Major Goals or Aims

• Proposal Abstract/Executive Summary (draft-only will suffice)

• Submission Method (including email or contact info as appropriate)

• Package ID / RRP/ Call for Proposal Number

• Due date (to the agency)

• Any collaborations (other departments or other institutions)

• Names of personnel

• CITI Research training certificate, if sponsor has implemented training requirements

When a chemistry faculty member is collaborating on a proposal with another department, and that department initiates the FP, Chemistry finance staff will need to see a copy of the proposal budget and justification before approving the FP.  Information on approvals by Chemistry and other departments can be found here.

Submit

Once a budget you’ve worked on with your assigned accountant is in place in MN-GEMS, the following actions are needed to get the required approvals in place for final submission.

1.  The faculty PI needs to follow the e-mail prompt from the MN-GEMS system to click on the link provided, review the answers to the PRF-like questions, and click “CERTIFY” on the left menu. THIS STEP NEEDS TO BE DONE NO LESS THAN THREE DAYS BEFORE THE SPA DEADLINE. Video instructions HERE. UMN Job Aid with screenshots is HERE.

2.  Once you certify, e-mail your accountant. They will then enter the names of other approvers like the department head, Co-I, or any approvers in other colleges. These are called “ancillary reviewers”  who will be prompted by e-mail from the MN-GEMS system to review and approve. Work with your accountant to address any issues raised by the ancillary reviewers.

3.  Even after the ancillary reviewers approve, the faculty PI can continue working on the proposal content. When the proposal content is done in an agency portal (i.e. like grants.gov), it is time for submission to the CSE dean’s office in MN-GEMS. Confusingly, the approval by the college is actually called “submit for department review.” At this point PIs should not be making any more changes to the proposal. THIS STEP NEEDS TO BE DONE ONE DAY BEFORE THE SPA DEADLINE.

4.  To make the last step in MN-GEMS to “submit for department review” by the CSE dean’s office:

   • Navigate in MN-GEMS to the Funding Proposal Workspace for the project that is ready to route for review.

   •  Select the Submit for Department Review activity from the left side menu.  Enter any comments and/or supporting documents for the reviewer, in questions 1 and 2 and select OK. 

   •  The funding proposal transitions to the Department Review state and is no longer editable by the PI and the other listed proposal editors. 

5.  At this point the PI is done in MN-GEMS. Once the dean’s office approves, SPA is automatically notified. Barring any new questions raised by SPA staff, they will review the proposal in MN-GEMS and in the agency portal for compliance, followed by the agency’s submission process.

NOTE: We no longer send an email to proposal@umn.edu to submit a proposal to SPA for review.  

Yoko Kofuji is our current SPA Grant & Contract Officer (kofuj004@umn.edu) for most grants. Crystal Nickels is our current SPA Grant & Contract Officer for Business and Industry grants (nickl043@umn.edu).

SPA will then conduct a standard administrative review, and will notify the PI and the department if changes are needed. If changes are needed, PI must work with the Grant Administrator to complete this process.

After review, SPA typically submits to the sponsor.  For non-federal sponsors, SPA may instead approve the PI submitting the final, approved proposal. 

No cost extensions, Annual and Final Reports

Requests for no cost extensions are processed in MN-GEMS, using the award modification request.  An FP is required to submit an NIH annual report (RPPR). SPA requires the same three-day lead time for annual report submission.

Please work with your accountant to obtain the person month data complete the personnel section of the annual report. Please allow 2 weeks of lead time to obtain this data.

SPA and NIH also require that all personnel listed on your RPPR have a current eRA commons ID and profile set up. Please complete and submit this form to the address listed on the form.

Chemistry Resources

Institutional Information

Proposal Preparation

eRA Common User ID Request form

SPA Proposal submission Resources

https://research.umn.edu/units/spa/proposals/electronic-grant-applications

https://research.umn.edu/units/spa/proposals/electronic-grant-applications/registering-nih-nsf-accounts

Quick Guide for Proposal Preparation and Submission

SPA Quick Reference Guide: Proposal Submissions to SPA