Internal Approval and Submission to Sponsor

Principal Investigators should submit proposals to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Pre-award specialist at least 10 working days prior to the agency’s deadline. If additional internal review is required by the PI’s school or college, that time is not included in the 10 days, and that review time should be added to the 10 days.

Proposals may not be submitted to sponsors without review by ORSP and approval by the University Signature Authority.   

The purpose of the internal routing and approval process is to inform University administrators of possible future project activities of the PI. A project may require special provisions such as release time, space allocation, or assignment of student employees. Additionally, proposal routing allows the ORSP to verify policies and governmental regulations related to the proposal and review budget calculations and rates.

The full proposal, as outlined in Proposal Preparation, can be submitted by email to grantandcontracts@mercer.edu.

Proposal Submission to Sponsor

After internal review, the proposal may be submitted to the sponsor. Depending on the sponsor, submission processes can take many different forms. This may be as be as simple as an email from the PI to the sponsor (after internal review and approval) or require submission through a sponsor-specific electronic research administration service.

Once a PI receives internal approval, the Pre-award specialist will confirm with the PI when and by whom the proposal will be submitted to the sponsor.

It is important to stay in contact with the Pre-award specialist through the submission process and beyond. If the proposal is submitted by the PI, a screenshots of the successful submission is usually requested as a part of the proposal record. Additionally, the Pre-award specialist will likely be the main point of contact for the sponsor as the proposal moves through the sponsor’s review process.