Proposal Processing Deadlines

ORSP's deadline for reviewing proposals is four business days before the sponsor's deadline.

• The finalized Proposal Approval Form (PAF) and the final proposal must arrive at ORSP no fewer than four (4) full business days in advance of the sponsor's deadline date and time.

• Please remember to accommodate deadlines from your unit and special circumstances, such as the Environmental Questionnaires completed by UM OSEH, and other such items.

• ORSP closes at 5 p.m. Proposals must be received by ORSP in time to submit the proposal by 5 p.m. of the due date even when the sponsor deadline is later than 5 p.m.

  When proposals are delivered to ORSP with four full working days, it is possible to correct items that the system marks as warnings, even though the items are not errors that will prevent the proposal from being validated by the system. ORSP will offer you the option to review and correct these items to optimize your proposal. ORSP will then resubmit the proposal. This service is only available for proposals that arrive at ORSP with the full, four-day lead time.

• The same deadlines apply regardless of whether ORSP or the PI's team will submit the proposal to the sponsor.

• Review the ORSP Standard Operating Procedure 200.01 on Proposal Review by ORSP for guidance.

Regarding all Proposals

Priorities for large volume of submissions
Be aware that when the number of proposals being submitted to meet a deadline is large, all proposals received on time will be fully processed, including necessary re-submissions, before those proposals that arrive at ORSP late. This is in fairness to those investigators who meet the published deadline. ORSP will, of course, do all it can to submit your proposal on time, but we wanted to make you aware of the way that proposals are prioritized and the associated risk of not meeting ORSP's deadlines.

Circumstances beyond our control
ORSP staff will do everything possible to get the proposal to the sponsor on time. However, as the amount of time for processing is reduced, the chance for insurmountable obstacles increases. Certain parts of the review process lay outside of ORSP and therefore, are subject to the schedules of other offices. When there is sufficient lead time, ORSP staff can compensate for these problems. Therefore, faculty should make every effort to provide the maximum time possible for ORSP to process and adequately review their proposals.