Welcome!
Our Office’s mission is to serve faculty researchers as you conceptualize, develop, and write your proposals to federal agencies and other entities to seek external funding for your research projects. We work across all disciplines, departments, and divisions, with the overarching goal of making the proposal as compelling and competitive as possible—and of making the research and proposal development process as straightforward and streamlined as possible.
Our services are comprehensive and include assistance with funding opportunity searches, strategic intelligence, team science and collaboration, the responsible use of AI, proposal planning, proposal management, scientific and scholarly editing and review, graphics support, and pre-award development of assessment and evaluation plans for broader impact activities and post-award implementation of those plans. We also coordinate the limited submission process and offer a robust schedule of research and proposal development training opportunities and resources.
To receive assistance, simply click on the green “request proposal assistance” button on this page and complete the form. We’ll then contact you to schedule a convenient time to discuss your project and your research and proposal development needs. We look forward to working with you!
The Office of Research Development Services encompasses two tightly integrated offices: the Office of Research Development and the Office of Assessment and Evaluation of Research Programs. We provide comprehensive support to investigators at every stage of research development. Our team has particular expertise in large, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional center proposals and early career proposals, and we welcome the opportunity to assist faculty working on federal proposals of any size.
We tailor our services to meet your specific research and proposal development needs. If you require support that is not listed below, please contact our office to discuss how we may best assist you.
Research Development
- Support and foster institutional research priorities to advance Momentous, the University’s ambitious strategic plan.
- Communicate shifts in the federal funding landscape and apprise researchers of these changes in a timely manner.
- Provide strategic funding intelligence to centers and institutes as well as individual investigators to address long-term research growth planning and immediate needs.
- Share insights on sponsors’ missions, programmatic priorities, and recent awards to help researchers align their research proposals with sponsors’ priorities.
- Liaise with federal funding agencies.
- Work with researchers to brainstorm strategies to create winning proposals.
- Provide guidance on using AI in research proposals.
- Offer comprehensive proposal development services, including proposal management, vetting, and editing.
Team Science and Collaboration
- Foster team science to address scientific challenges, drive innovation, and accelerate discovery.
- Cultivate collaboration to break through disciplinary and departmental silos by assisting investigators in identifying appropriate team members to round out their team’s expertise.
- Connect the principal investigator and their team with key campus resources, including research administrators, the Office of Sponsored Projects and its Office of Pre-Award Services, and the Center for STEM Engagement.
Proposal Management
- Create a proposal checklist, production schedule, and templates.
- Establish an online collaboration site and maintain master copies of all proposal files.
- Track all proposal tasks and proposal sections, including those assigned to collaborators at other institutions, to ensure that all items are completed in a timely manner.
- Schedule weekly proposal meetings to enhance team communication and ensure steady progress.
- Assist the research team (if needed) in making the go/no-go decision.
- Troubleshoot any issues that may arise.
Proposal Vetting, Editing, and Review
- Vet and edit both the technical and non-technical sections of the proposal to ensure that all material is clearly, logically, and persuasively presented.
- Integrate material written by multiple team members and edit or rewrite material generated by AI so that the proposal reads as if it were written in a single, consistent, and coherent voice.
- Design and format the proposal so that it is visually appealing to reviewers.
- Verify that the proposal complies with all sponsor guidelines and addresses all review criteria.
- Assist in arranging red team reviews of center proposals.
Graphics Support
- Work with faculty to develop artwork such as schematics, 3D renderings, infographics, charts, and timelines.
- Create artwork from descriptions, hand-drawn sketches, or over Zoom.
- Edit and remake artwork from feedback and/or comments.
- Gather official logos for multi-institutional proposals.
- Offer videography with 3D and 2D animation.
- Design art for journal covers and research articles.
Assessment and Evaluation
- Work with faculty to clarify the purpose, goals, and intended outcomes of the proposed project, including education, broader impacts, workforce development, training, outreach, and research capacity-building activities.
- Help translate project activities into clear, measurable evaluation questions, objectives, indicators, and outcomes that align with sponsor requirements and proposal review criteria.
- Develop feasible assessment and evaluation plans that identify what data will be collected, from whom, and when; how the findings will be analyzed; and how findings will be used to inform implementation, improvement, and reporting.
- Recommend appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, document review, participation tracking, pre/post assessments, rubrics, and feedback forms.
- Support the development of logic models, evaluation frameworks, timelines, and data collection plans that demonstrate alignment between project activities, outputs, short-term outcomes, and longer-term impacts.
- Review and strengthen proposal language to ensure the evaluation approach is clear, realistic, funder-responsive, and appropriate for the project scope, timeline, and available resources.
- Provide post-award support, including refinement of evaluation instruments, data collection planning, analysis of findings, progress reporting, and recommendations for continuous improvement.
Proposal Training
- Provide primers on major federal funding agencies such as DOD, DOE, and NIH.
- Lead informational lunch and learn sessions and host panel discussions on a wide range of federal funding agencies, their programmatic priorities, and their proposal requirements.
- Offer informational sessions on proposal-related topics such as artificial intelligence (AI).
- Deliver a three-part, semester-long workshop on the NSF CAREER Award, with Part 1 focusing on providing information on the CAREER program and on drafting the project summary, Part 2 concentrating on drafting the remainder of the proposal, and Part 3 providing a panel review.
- Post in-house training opportunities for researchers interested in learning more about research and proposal development.
Research Development Resources
- Maintain a list of Executive Orders and Federal Agency Directives, along with contextual articles, to help researchers stay informed about policy shifts that may affect their research and proposals.
- Supply an updated boilerplate library of write-ups on campus resources that researchers will often need to include in their proposals so that researchers do not have to create this text from scratch.
Provide a list of federal career awards programs.