Pre-Award

Proposal Processing Timeline: 10/8/2

The College of Engineering-Office of Research Administration (COE-ORA or COE Pre-Award) maintains the following submission policy for proposals: 
– Complete PD record routed by 8 am, 8 business days prior to the deadline.
– Full proposal released and ready for submission by 8am, 2 business days prior to the deadline.

This effectively puts us on a 9-day/3-day schedule for new proposals, since our business hours are 8am-5pm.

Given this, it is important to initiate a proposal intake form well in advance. Additional review will be required if you are working with a sponsor that has unique terms and conditions, or if the sponsor has never had a contract with NC State. 

Because of this, we are implementing a new internal proposal policy. Proposal Intake Forms via RED PD should be routed to dept staff a minimum of 10 business days prior to the deadline. Once we have the intake form, we can work with you to prep your budget and the rest of the PD record.

Please refer to our Proposal Deadline Calculator for details about when items are due. This also includes all of the requirements for the PD intake form, full PD record, and full proposal, as well as direct links to the COE policy memo.

Proposal Documents

• NSF
• NIH
• SciENcv for Biosketch and Current & Pending Support (suitable for most federal sponsors when a template is not specified)
  • In May 2026, NIH will begin requiring use of SciENcv for all biosketches.
• Data Management Plan information from NC State Libraries
• COE Standard Questions (updated for RED PD)

Rush Submissions

Beginning April 1, COE will be instituting a prior approval process for rush submissions (those that do not meet the 8-day/2-day deadline). PIs will be asked to fill out a Smartsheet form for DH and ADRI approval, and upload this approval in RED PD.

Beginning June 1, this prior approval will be required in order for the proposal to be submitted.

We will share more details as they become available.

PD Record Minimum Requirements

We will have 3 different stages of the proposal process:

Agreements that Require a PD Record

For more details, see the COE Pre-Award Guide.

• Letter of Intent/White Paper when university AOR must sign or submit
• New sponsored research proposal, including internal solicitations (i.e. RISF or FRPD)
• Supplement to existing research project
• Revised sponsored research proposal if the total change in amount is 10% difference or more (whether increase or decrease) from the original budget
• Subcontract proposal
• NIH reports (i.e. NIH RPPR, Final RPPR)
• Data Use or Transfer Agreement (DUA)
• Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
• Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)
• Academic Course Design (aka Senior Design or Capstone Project)
• Testing Service Agreements (TSA)
• Fabricated Service Agreements (FSA)
• IPA agreements