Application Process

To help ensure smooth and timely submission, please plan ahead and connect with your portfolio manager well before the review windows outlined below. There are two deadlines that must be observed in order to submit a proposal:
 

1. Internal review deadline (HGSE Academic Dean reviews for school requirements, faculty commitment, etc., and HU-OSP reviews for sponsor requirements, Harvard policies, etc.)
2. Sponsor deadline
    

Pre-Proposals should be finalized, locked, and routed in GMAS at least 3 full business days before the sponsor’s deadline. This does not include deadline day, so think of it as 4 days. While brief, pre-proposals are a critical step and should be carefully developed to strengthen your chances of a full proposal invitation.

Full Proposals must be final, complete, locked, and routed in GMAS with all School-level approvals at least 5 full business days before the sponsor’s deadline. This does not include deadline day, so think of it as 6 days. This includes any required attachments or approvals from the sponsor or the University.

Your Portfolio Manager must review your proposal requirements and create the proposal record in GMAS in order to submit it to HU-OSP, so you must factor in additional time before the internal deadline.

If you are including a subaward in your proposal, you will need to account for additional deadlines. Like Harvard, the subaward institution has its own review process, so you must give your subawardee ample time to meet their internal deadlines. Please note that some sponsors require more subaward items than others, which might affect the amount of time an institution will need to complete their subaward application package. It is best practice to have the subawardee’s complete and final application package in hand at least ten business days prior to your internal review deadline. For more information about subawards, see our Subagreements page or visit the University guidance on Including a Subrecipient on Proposal Submissions. 

Note: If Harvard is a subrecipient, timelines may be adjusted based on the lead institution’s internal deadlines.

Most sponsors provide instructions that specify the form and content of the proposal. There are a handful of items that are required for all proposals.

Common Proposal Elements
•    Budget
•    Budget Justification  
•    Statement of Work/Proposal Narrative
•    All administrative and programmatic elements as required by the sponsor 
•    If there are any subawards, applicable documents from each subrecipient    
•    Any other forms/documents such as representations and certification that are required by the sponsor and require institutional signature  

Budget Preparation
Your PM is responsible for crafting a budget to suit your project needs. Sponsored projects include two broad categories of costs: direct and indirect. Direct costs are project expenses that can be identified specifically with a particular sponsored project and are necessary for the performance of the project. Indirect costs are costs that cannot be readily identified with a particular project, but are still required in order to support the University’s research efforts. Indirect costs are also known as overhead or Facilities & Administrative costs (F&A). Federal rules indicate that all costs must be allocable, allowable, reasonable, and consistently treated as either direct or indirect costs.

Subawards
If you are including a subaward in your proposal, please note that the complete and final subawardee application package must be included in the full proposal package that you submit for internal Harvard review. The subawardee application package includes, at a minimum, a statement of work, budget, budget justification, and letter of intent signed by an authorized official. Some sponsors require additional items, in which case the subawardee might need more time to complete them. For more information about subawards, see our Subagreements page or visit the University guidance on Including a Subrecipient on Proposal Submissions. 
    
Cost Sharing 
Cost sharing, also known as matching, is when a single scope of work is funded by multiple sources, such as other sponsored awards or Harvard. When reporting to sponsors on cost shared projects, reporting may include activities and expenses on other funds that support the overall scope of work. 
Multi-funder projects may not be considered cost share if each sponsor supports a separate and discrete piece of a larger scope of work, and if sponsor funding is not contingent upon the commitment of other funding.

Harvard strongly discourages cost sharing, unless such a commitment is required by the federal or non-federal sponsor. All committed cost sharing must be tracked and may require reporting.
Cost Sharing Guidance
 

PIs and PMs work together to create a successful proposal package. Ideally, they should meet and discuss the process and the roles and responsibilities of everyone working on a proposal. While PIs are concentrating on the science, PMs provide technical support, including:

• Creating a proposal timeline
• Budget and budget narrative development
• CV review
• Current and pending support documentation development
• Subcontract proposal documentation development
• Communication with PI’s subcontractors
• Approval requests
   

1. Principal Investigator (PI) reviews call for proposals and sends it to Portfolio Manager (PM)
2. PI and PM create timeline and identify deadlines (see Deadlines tab above)
3. PI and PM complete respective programmatic and administrative proposal requirements
4. PM reviews proposal requirements and creates proposal request in Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS)
5. PM submits GMAS request to Central HU-OSP
6. HU-OSP reviews proposal
7. PI and PM respond to HU-OSP’s questions and corrections
8. HU-OSP submits proposal to sponsor