See also the Proposal Due Date Calculator.

Consistent with peer institutions, UAB is updating our practice for enforcing an internal deadline in order to ensure proposals meet the sponsor’s requirements and deadlines.  UAB requires all grant proposals be submitted for review to the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) prior to submission to the external sponsor.  The complete proposal along with the required supporting documents (i.e., Extramural Checklist, RPL, Funding Opportunity Announcement) must be received in OSP no later than 8:00 AM five (5) full business days prior to the sponsor’s deadline.  Any incomplete or late submission to OSP will not be accepted for review by OSP or submission to the sponsor without an approved exception. The sponsor’s deadline is the date and time for the cutoff as shown in the funding announcement.

UAB is subject to numerous requirements, including but not limited to those set forth in specific sponsor solicitations and guidelines, federal regulations including 2 CFR 200 Uniform Guidance, Alabama statues, as well as UAB institutional policies. Sufficient time is necessary for OSP personnel to verify a proposal’s compliance with those requirements and to ensure an overall level of quality prior to the application’s deadline. Therefore, OSP is mandated to conduct a thorough review of all extramural grant proposals prior to submission to sponsors.

• Complete Final and Error-Free Proposals (Research Plan Section can be a Current Working Draft) in a Complete Submission are due to OSP no later than 8:00 AM five (5) full business days prior to the sponsor’s deadline. For NIH grant applications, the following is required:
  
  • All NIH grant applications must pass all validations in NIH ASSIST before submitting to OSP.
  • Your submission of the Complete Final and Error-Free Proposal to OSP must include a screenshot/image (example below) of the confirmation showing that the NIH grant application has passed all validations in NIH ASSIST.
  • If the Complete Final, Error Free Proposal is received by OSP without the NIH ASSIST “All Validations Passed” documentation, the submission will be considered incomplete, and will be sent back to the submitting department. If resubmission of the application falls outside of the required time frame mentioned above, the application will be treated as late, and will not be eligible for review.

    

    Example: A UAB PI submits a Complete Final, Error Free Proposal submission at 9pm six (6) business days before the NIH deadline. The submission is returned as “incomplete” due to the omission of the required “All Validations Passed” documentation. The PI validates the proposal in ASSIST, and includes the required validation documentation in a subsequent submission to OSP at 11am five (5) business days before the NIH deadline. This submission will be considered “late” and will not be eligible for OSP review or submission to NIH.

• “Ready-to-Submit" Proposals are due to OSP no later than 12:00 Noon the business day before the sponsor’s deadline. An email confirmation must be sent to the OSP Officer stating that the final proposal is “Ready For Submission”.
  • All final NIH grant applications should include a screenshot (example below) of the confirmation via the "Ready-to-Submit" email to the OSP Officer with notification that grant is ready that the application has passed validation in NIH ASSIST.

    

• All PIs submitting to NIH are required to review the application image in the NIH ASSIST Preview Application screen. Any required changes are to be made prior to submitting to OSP. NIH Changed/Corrected proposals will be limited to technical and system-related issues only.  Due to volume, OSP may not be able to resubmit a grant application due to PI desired changes that should have been caught by the PI/dept during the preview process.
• In rare instances, there is an exception process. The Principal Investigator must submit a letter request, signed by the PI, Department Chair and Dean, to the Vice President for Research (VPR) detailing the mitigating circumstances of the lateness to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. No delegate or per signatures are accepted. If approved by the VPR, the approval should be included in the OSP submission.  Exceptions after 12:00 Noon the day before the sponsor’s deadline will not be considered.

More Details

Submission Steps

Omission of these steps will result in the proposal being returned to the department as Incomplete and may jeopardize the submission of the proposal to the sponsor.  Remember:  Each UAB school/college may have additional review and approval deadline requirements in addition to the OSP 8:00 AM five (5) business day institutional plan. Please contact your department research administrator for the specific requirements for your area.

OSP Review Summary

Proposals are reviewed on a first-in, first-out basis.  No proposals will “cut in line.” The OSP officer will provide a review summary report of the application within two (2) business days of receipt, which should provide the PI adequate time to complete final modifications to the application.