14. Routing and Submitting the Proposal
Submission of grant applications must be made through an approved campus grants and contracts agency.
Submission of grant applications must be made through an approved campus grants and contracts agency. The proposal text and the final proposal budget are reviewed and routed through one of these agencies:
- Texas A&M Research Foundation (TAMRF)
- Texas Agricultural Experiment Station (TAES)
- Texas Engineering Experiement Station (TEES)
- Texas Transportation Institute (TTI)
- Health Science Center (HSC)
Each of these agencies has its own set of guidelines for reviewing, processing, and submitting grant applications. At a minimum, however, each will route the application to each principal investigator, as well as to each investigator’s department head, college dean, and vice president for research and/or provost. These institutional officials will review the proposal text and budget to ensure that they are in compliance with both the sponsor’s and the campus agency’s rules and regulations; if they are, the institutional officials will sign the routing sheet, thereby clearing the application for submission to the sponsor.
How to Route an Application Through the Texas A&M Research Foundation
1. Call or e-mail the proposal administrator and notify him or her that the application is ready to route.
Note: For a list of proposal administrators, visit http://rf-web.tamu.edu/preaward/proposaladm.html.
2. E-mail
the draft proposal text and the final proposal budget to the proposal
administrator
at least 6 working days before the proposal due
date. Allow additional time if the proposal involves multiple investigators,
since such a proposal will likely require additional signatures.
Note: An investigator may continue to revise the proposal text (but not the budget) while the proposal is being routed.
3. The proposal administrator will prepare a
routing packet, give it to a Texas A&M Research Foundation courier, who
then takes the packet to the principal investigator, any co-investigators, the
department head(s), college dean(s), and the vice president for research and/or
provost for signatures.
Texas A&M University Routing Sheet (link to MS Word document)
How to Submit an Application Through the Texas A&M Research Foundation
1. Notify the proposal administrator that the final version of the application is ready for submission.
2. E-mail the final proposal text to the proposal administrator or upload the final proposal text at least 2 full working days before the proposal due date.
3. The proposal administrator will complete the following activities to finalize the application and prepare it for submission to the sponsor:
- Review the final text for compliance with the sponsor’s guidelines, as well as for compliance with the campus agency’s guidelines.
- Assemble the grant application in the specified format.
- Perform a quality control check.
- Photocopy the grant application.
- Check the quality of the photocopy.
4. The proposal administrator will submit the grant application via the appropriate carrier and/or will e-mail/upload the application electronically.
5. The proposal administrator
will e-mail the principal investigator an electronic copy of the final proposal
subsequent to submission.
Important Note Regarding Electronic Proposal Submission Procedures
New and developing electronic proposal initiatives for private and particularly for federal proposals have added significant preparation time to the proposal process. As these new systems come online, there will likely be an initial period marked by glitches; therefore, extra time will be required to submit grant applications via these systems. Indeed, federal grant applications flow through at least two electronic systems during submission (the Grants.gov system as well as the sponsor’s system). The additional edit checks required by these systems are adding substantial time to the proposal submission process, causing federal agencies to request that proposals be submitted the day before the actual deadline. Campus proposal offices will need additional time to meet these requirements.
