Proposal Development

The university provides a budget template for SDSU faculty and staff to use in preparing applications for sponsored funding.

The budget template includes calculations for facilities and administrative (or indirect) rates, fringe benefits, salaries for personnel and graduate research assistants and other items specific to sponsor and university guidelines. A budget justification template is also available.

Get the templates from InsideState

• Tuition remission: These funds are charged to the project in relation to tuition provided to a graduate research assistant.
• Participant support costs: Costs budgeted to support participants in a project or program. Participants are not employees. Participants are provided training or workshop as part of a sponsored project. Costs may include stipends, per diem, travel and scholarships.
• Cost share or match: Funds or in-kind services provided by the applicant and/or partners to support the project, as required by a sponsor. These are included in a project budget if the sponsor requires cost share or match.
• Travel calculation: Refers to the process of estimating and budgeting for the costs associated with travel for a research project. These costs may include airfare, lodging, meals, transportation and other expenses related to travel. When preparing a budget, refer to the state travel reimbursement rates.

• Advance fund: Provides a principal investigator the opportunity to initiate their sponsored research project and begin incurring necessary project expenses prior to the institutional acceptance of an award due to delay from an external sponsor. The need to establish an advance fund may arise when:

  • SDSU has received an award but spending is necessary prior to the official start date of the project so expenses will fall outside the period of performance of an award.
  • Spending is necessary prior to the receipt of an award but expenses will fall within the anticipated period of performance of an award.

  To initiate advance spending, the principal investigator completes the Request for Advance Fund form. After the department head, director or dean approves the request, this approval and documentation should be forwarded to Grants and Contracts Administration. Approval is contingent on the criteria listed in the form and satisfactory completion of applicable compliance requirements (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Institutional Review Board, Institutional Biosafety Committee and conflict of interest).

  Advance spending funds are not allowed on a project with a private (nongovernmental) entity per SDSU 3P Guide to Practices and Agreements.

• Policies and procedures (budget, preaward, postaward, etc.)

Working with external collaborators can serve to expand a project's capacity, impact and opportunity for success. These relationships can take different forms based on the nature of the work and of the collaborator.

• Subaward (to a subawardee): Means SDSU is a pass-through for the award to its collaborator. A subawardee is responsible to the objectives of the project and programmatic decision-making. A subawardee is responsible for providing a budget and other proposal documents to the lead organization during proposal development.
• Contractor: Provides goods and services to the project and is not responsible to the project's objectives or decision-making. The goods and services a contractor provides are part of its normal business operations.
• The federal rule determining subawardee and contractor status helps differentiate the roles.
• A principal investigator may choose to use an adviser or a consultant as an unfunded collaborator, depending on the nature and length of the relationship. Refer to the sponsor's guidance to learn how to document an unfunded collaborator in the application.

The indirect costs of research — also referred to as the facilities and administrative costs of research — are essential to conducting world-class research effectively, efficiently, safely and securely. Federal agencies reimburse institutions for the facilities and administrative costs they incur to support research overall. These are expenses that are difficult to attribute to specific research projects on an individual basis (e.g., libraries, physical lab operation and maintenance, utility costs, security and other similar needs). Without support of facilities and administrative costs, research labs would literally go dark (Council on Government Relations, 2025).

Here's a breakdown of direct vs. indirect costs in proposal budgets:

• Direct costs: These are expenses directly related to the specific project or activity for which the grant is awarded. Direct costs can include items such as faculty and project staff salaries, supplies, equipment and travel expenses that are directly tied to the project's implementation.
• Indirect costs: Indirect costs are the overhead expenses that support the institution's research but are not easily attributable to individual projects. Examples of indirect costs include facilities maintenance, utilities, preaward and postaward administrative support, accounting, legal services, libraries and general office supplies and equipment.

Current indirect cost rate agreement and resources

Serving as a peer reviewer for a sponsor is an excellent way to learn about the sponsor, see the process from the review side and understand what might make a good proposal. It can also be an opportunity to network with colleagues and program officers and serve your research community.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020) presents in these slides the benefits, aspects and process of being a reviewer.

Generally, to be considered as a reviewer, contact the program officer for the area in which you’re interested. Often, they will request background information, including your biographical sketch or CV.

For specific programs and agencies:

• National Institutes of Health information for reviewers: This site is specific to reviewers for NIH, from how to become a reviewer, to meeting information and guidelines and tools.
• National Institutes of Health Early Career Reviewer Program: The program aims to help early career scientists become more competitive as grant applicants through firsthand experience with peer review and to enrich the Center of Scientific Review’s pool of trained reviewers.
• National Science Foundation’s general proposal review and processing: Program officers identify at least three external reviewers to review submitted proposals after they have conducted a preliminary compliance review. To serve as a National Science Foundation reviewer, contact the cognizant program officer of the program in which you're interested.
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program: Serving as a Graduate Research Fellowship Program reviewer is an opportunity to apply your research and career expertise to help identify future science and engineering leaders and to gain valuable perspectives to share with faculty and students at your institution.
• National Endowment for the Arts review process: This page outlines the review process and offers a video on how to serve as a panelist.
• USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture panelist information: National Institute of Food and Agriculture convenes peer review panels comprised of research, education, extension and other subject matter experts to review competitive grant proposals. Panelist duties include reviewing proposals; drafting and submitting individual ratings and written reviews; and attending and participating in a panel meeting.

The incentive plan encourages faculty and eligible professional staff to secure externally funded sponsorship for research, scholarship and creative activity and rewards them for their successes. The program offers a one-time incentive payment if the grant budget includes base salary and fringe benefits (not summer salary) and generates indirect facilities and administrative costs. See the policy for greater detail.

To be considered for the program, personnel must indicate as such on the key project personnel compliance questions from the routing form. This is then reviewed for eligibility during the administrative review process.

View the Policy

List of Glossaries

• Grants.gov Terminology
• NIH Clinical Trials Terms
• USDA Glossary of Acronyms
• NIH Grants and Funding
• SAMHSA Glossary

Common Terms and Acronyms

• Biographical sketch or biosketch: A personnel’s list of training, appointments, publications, etc., like a CV or resume. Refer to sponsor guidelines for specific formatting and information requested.
• C&P or CPS: Current and pending support (list of current and pending grants and proposals).
• CFDA: Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance.
• COA or COI: Collaborators and other affiliations (National Science Foundation) or conflicts of interest (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, DOE).
• Collaborative proposal (National Science Foundation): Multiorganization application, typically with subawards but sometimes submitted separately and simultaneously. If submitted separately, each organization prepares an application in research.gov, which are linked within the system.
• Consortium (National Institutes of Health): Collaborative or proposal with a subaward.
• EPSCoR: Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.
• FOA: Funding opportunity announcement.
• GRA: Graduate research assistant.
• JIT: Just In Time (National Institutes of Health).
• LOC: Letter of commitment or letter of collaboration.
  • LOI: Letter of intent.
• LOS: Letter of support.
• NOA: Notice of award.
• NOFO: Notice of funding opportunity.
• OAU: Other authorized user (National Science Foundation).
• PA: Parent announcement (National Institutes of Health).
• PI: Principal investigator (the project’s lead personnel).
• PD: Project director or program director.
• PO: Program officer, typically with a federal agency’s grants program.
• SKP: Senior/key personnel. Project personnel who are key to a project and have input in the direction of a project. Often, senior personnel provide quantified effort and are salaried on a project..
• Solicitation: Announcement requesting or soliciting proposals for funding (National Science Foundation).
• STTR: Small Business Technology Transfer.
• SBIR: Small Business Innovation Research.

Learn more about the types of grants available through National Institutes of Health, including the R series for research, K series for career development and the T and F series for training and fellowships.

If you don't have an eRA Commons ID, contact the grant development specialist .

Review the grants application guide here at How to Apply – Application Guide.
Follow the National Institutes of Health biosketch format instructions. Personnel should use scienCV to create this document for their proposals.

The agency issued new guidance and policy, effective January 2023, around data management and sharing. National Institutes of Health offers additional guidance on how to create a data management and sharing plan.

This one-page guide provides information on rigor and reproducibility in National Institutes of Health applications.

Getting Started

2024 proposal and policy guide (NSF 24-1), effective May 20, 2024. New in 2024: Investigators should be aware of updates to the required personnel documents, mentoring plans for graduate students and postdocs and guidance on working with tribal entities.

Register for an account at Research.gov: Affiliate your Research.gov account with SDSU via My Profile then My Roles/Add a New Role. You will select the Add Investigator or Authorized User Role. Use UEI DNZNC466DGR7 to affiliate with SDSU. Submit applications using Research.gov.

Key Components

Refer to the Proposal Preparation section of the National Science Foundation Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide for overall guidance on format and required proposal content and sections, including the project summary, project description and budget. Also refer to the program solicitation for guidelines specific to that call for proposals. The National Science Foundation requires these senior personnel documents: biographical sketch and current and pending support documents formatted in scienCV, the collaborators and other affiliations table in the Excel template and a separate list of synergistic activities. Personnel must use SciENcv for creating the biographical sketch and current and pending support to fit National Science Foundation guidelines. Refer to the video tutorials and help documentation.

Prepare your data management and sharing plan according to National Science Foundation’s general guidance. You may also find guidance specific to directorates and/or divisions for your data management plan. PIs can also use dmptool.org to generate their plans. The tool includes prompts and SDSU-specific language (log in using single sign-on).

If you use LaTeX to create your proposal, National Science Foundation offers a library of LaTeX templates on GitHub.

U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture application guidance

The USDA NIFA Grants Application Guide (July 2023) lays out instructions for applying to the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The Grants Application Guide serves as the umbrella guidance for the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Always refer to the funding opportunity announcement (e.g. request for applications) for specific requirements. The request for applications instructions supersede the instructions in the guide.

National Institute of Food and Agriculture Application Support Templates include those for conflict of interest, project summary and current and pending support.

Personnel documents: Refer to the application guide for the biographical sketch (page 47), current and pending (page 48) and conflict of interest (page 81). The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not have a required template for the biographical sketch.

If a logic model is required, see Logic Model Planning: and refer to the NIFA Generic Logic Model example

A data management plan is required for all competitive grants programs.

NASA application guidelines

The NASA Grant and Cooperative Agreement Manual lays out instructions for applying to NASA.

The Grant and Cooperative Agreement Manual serves as the umbrella guidance for NASA. Always refer to the funding opportunity announcement (e.g. request for applications of notice of funding opportunity) for specific requirements. The funding opportunity instructions supersede the instructions in the guide.

NASA recently began requiring biographical sketches and current and pending support documents for all principal investigators, co-principal investigators and co-investigators. Please see this video for guidance on completing these disclosures.