The Office of Sponsored Program's Faculty Proposal Services team provides UVA units/departments with full lifecycle support for proposal planning, development, and submission, including limited post-submission updates and non-financial reporting. This team provides support through dedicated specialists who routinely handle complex proposal management tasks, reducing the need for each unit to hire and develop deep, specialized expertise independently, therefore improving the service to our faculty. Operating within the Office of Sponsored Programs, they collaborate effectively with their team members to deliver a smooth and efficient proposal process for University faculty.

Please note that this service is not available to individual faculty members The current model is available at a department (or higher) level. Questions can be directed to OSPProposals@virginia.edu. 

At this time, we do not have dedicated research development staff available to provide direct assistance. However, there are strong resources within individual schools and through the Office of Sponsored Programs that can support proposal development, budgeting, and submission. We encourage investigators to work with their school-based research support teams and OSP to access the guidance and expertise needed for their projects.

Proposal Support Available 

• Budgets and sponsor-specific forms
  • Please work directly with your research administrator (in your School or in the Office of Sponsored Programs, as assigned).
• Uploading of proposal to Huron and routing for approval
  • Please work directly with your research administrator (in your School or in the Office of Sponsored Programs, as assigned).
• Biosketches and external letters of support
  • Please work directly with your research administrator (in your School or in the Office of Sponsored Programs, as assigned).
• Letters of support from the Office of the VPR
  • Faculty are expected to draft such letters and provide them to the Office of the VPR for review and revision – well in advance of the sponsor’s deadline. Please contact the OVPR Chief of Staff Cheryl Wagner with these requests.
  • Your request should include a timeframe (sponsor's deadline), the name and a brief description of the program (including a link if there is one), and any instructions or info the sponsor provided about what the letter is supposed to contain.
• Training grant data tables
  • Most information needed for these tables is either collected and managed at the department level, or directly by the investigators (e.g. mentors). Contact administrators in the relevant departments early in the process to begin data collection for tables.
    • NIH data tables instructions
    • NSF data tables instructions: see the most recent NSF Research Traineeship Program solicitation; note NSF calls these “demographic tables”
• Compiling references/citations/bibliographies
  • UVA’s libraries provide guidance on citation management tools. If you have multiple contributors to a proposal, we encourage you to select a tool early to make citation management simpler. Students or administrative staff can be enlisted to compile references into a single library or document.
• Cost Share Requests
  • If cost share is required by the sponsor, then faculty should work with their department chair(s) and School ADR(s) to identify sources of cost share or bridge funding. If the Dean’s office feels it is appropriate, they may reach out to the VPR’s office with a request for support on behalf of the project. The contact person for such requests is the OVPR Chief of Staff Cheryl Wagner.
  • Please note, per UVA policy, the University generally discourages but does not prohibit voluntary committed cost sharing.
• The University has partnered with Hanover Research to provide research resources to the UVA community. These resources include funding alerts for a wide range of federal and non-federal opportunities, grant calendars that are focused on specific fields of discipline, informative webinars on subjects such as early career and mid-career funding opportunities, research writing strategies, and much more. To access these resources for yourself and/or your department/School, please contact Dillon Kuhn at dkuhn@hanoverresearch.com
• Program Evaluation
  • If an external evaluator is required for your project, contact Research Development for potential referrals. In addition to UVA resources, Hanover Research offers a fee-based evaluation service.