Proposal FAQs

All proposals must be approved by the Director and an Associate Director before they are submitted to ORSPA. Start by discussing the solicitation with them — you must receive approval to submit a proposal before you complete the Intent Coupon.

Yes. All letters of intent, full proposals, and contracts must be submitted by ORSPA. Faculty and team members cannot apply for grants or other funding directly on behalf of IVAN Research Institute, whether or not the sponsor requires an institutional signature. Routing through ORSPA protects the Institute's compliance standing, confirms budget accuracy, and makes sure any commitments the proposal makes on the Institute's behalf are ones the Institute can actually keep.

The exception is funding that is awarded to you as an individual rather than to the institution — certain fellowships and awards from professional associations, for example. Contact ORSPA with any questions before applying for individual funding.

It means the final version of your complete proposal — narrative, budget and budget justification, biosketches or CVs, letters of support, and any compliance documentation — is in the Submission folder two (2) weeks before the submission due date, not still being drafted. If ORSPA does not receive it by then, the proposal may not be reviewed or even submitted, and the PI takes responsibility and may have to wait until the next application cycle.

Yes. The PI will be asked to join a Zoom call during the final validation of the proposal, before it is submitted.

The PI, faculty, and investigative members are responsible for writing the proposal narrative and science. IVAN Research Institute aids the faculty and team in preparing the proposal, and the Pre-Award team prepares the necessary supporting and administrative grant documents — such as the budget and budget justification and letters of support — and handles the complete compilation and submission of the application.

ORSPA meets with you to review the proposal guidelines, plan the submission process, and specify roles for the PI, other investigators, postdocs, and anyone else staffing the grant.

It depends on the sponsor. Some sponsors, including NIH, formally recognize multiple-PI arrangements; others use a single-PI model with named Co-Investigators instead. Check the sponsor's proposal guidelines before drafting the budget, since the number and role of investigators can affect how indirect cost recovery and effort are allocated.

Faculty and team members cannot partner with, or enter into any agreement with, external organizations, schools, or institutes on behalf of IVAN Research Institute without prior authorization from ORSPA — so speak to ORSPA before making any commitment. How an external person is included depends on their role and whether they are being paid from the budget. The usual categories are: a subrecipient organization performing a defined portion of the research with its own budget and intellectual contribution; a paid consultant delivering a specific service; or an unfunded collaborator. Tell the ORSPA Pre-Award team about every non-IVAN senior or key person as soon as you identify them, so the right paperwork — letters of collaboration, subaward commitment forms — can be requested in time.

A limited submission is a funding opportunity where the sponsor restricts IVAN Research Institute to submitting only a set number of proposals, regardless of how many researchers want to apply. When a limited submission opportunity is identified, ORSPA runs a short internal competition to select which proposal or proposals will go forward. Contact ORSPA as soon as you see a limited submission announcement, since internal competition deadlines are set well ahead of the sponsor's own deadline.

A subaward goes to another organization that is a genuine partner in the research — contributing its own intellectual input, key personnel, and a detailed budget of its own — and requires a Scope of Work and commitment documentation before the proposal can be submitted. A consultant or vendor cost is a fee for a defined service or product, with no intellectual ownership of the research and no publication role. Misclassifying one as the other is one of the most common reasons a budget needs to be revised late in the process, so flag any external party to ORSPA early.

Yes, unless the sponsor has published a policy that caps or waives them — in which case that published policy, not the standard rate, applies, and a copy of it should be kept with the proposal file. Where no such limit exists, IVAN Research Institute's full indirect cost rate applies to the budget. Ask ORSPA for the current rate when you start budgeting.

Personnel costs are built from each team member's current salary and the percentage of their time — their "effort" — the project will require, plus applicable fringe benefits. ORSPA can supply current salary and fringe figures, and will check that the effort you propose is realistic against your other existing commitments before the budget is finalized.

Yes. The required CITI certifications must be completed by all personnel working on a sponsored research project, not only the PI and senior or key people. The required certifications are:

• Human Research for Investigators
• Condensed Research Security Training Module
• Nigerian National Code for Health Research Ethics
• Responsible Conduct of Research
• Social and Behavioral Research for Investigators

If the PI or associated research personnel are involved with human subjects or animals in their research, they must also complete the required training modules for that work. ORSPA can confirm your current training status.

Review the Institute's policy on employing or supervising relatives with the ORSPA Pre-Award team before the proposal is drafted. Where a real or perceived conflict exists, ORSPA will help put an independent oversight arrangement in place so the proposal can proceed.

You need approval from IVAN Research Institute's Institutional Review Board — or, where applicable, the National Health Research Ethics Committee — before any contact with participants begins, and that approval should be referenced in the proposal. This applies to everything from a short survey to a full clinical study.

You need Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee approval before the project begins. Contact ORSPA early, since sponsors increasingly want evidence that this approval is either in hand or clearly in progress at the time of submission.

You need Institutional Biosafety Committee approval before work with the materials begins. Talk to ORSPA about biosafety review timelines while the proposal is still being drafted, not after an award is made.

Contact the Institute's Radiation Safety Officer, through ORSPA, before the proposal is finalized. Projects involving radioisotopes, X-ray equipment, or other ionizing radiation sources need safety clearance and, where applicable, regulatory authorization from the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority before work can begin.

All investigators on a research project must complete and submit a monthly effort certificate form. Before closing out a project, the PI must file a completion report.

Funding agencies need time to review and evaluate proposals, so typically expect a wait of four to ten months between submitting your proposal and the start of a funding opportunity.

Contact the ORSPA Pre-Award team immediately, before responding to the sponsor. Every revised budget or post-submission change has to be reviewed by ORSPA, the same as the original proposal, before it goes back to the sponsor.

Before a project account is opened, ORSPA confirms: a current Conflict of Interest disclosure and the required CITI certifications for all personnel on the project; any required IRB, IACUC, or biosafety approvals; the final approved budget and budget justification; subrecipient documentation, if the award includes a subaward; and the fully executed sponsor award document. Getting these in place before the award decision lands is the single biggest factor in how quickly your account can be opened.

Once the award is reviewed, processed, and fully executed, ORSPA helps you set up the grant account, facilitates all grant-related transactions, and sets up any subcontracts or sub-awards. You will have access to view and allocate your grant award as appropriate, and your Post-Award contact — an ORSPA Research Administrator (RA) — is your point of contact for budget changes, reporting deadlines, and any award amendments.

ORSPA also assists the PI in developing the routine financial and programmatic reports the funder requires.

Before closing out a project, the PI must file a completion report. ORSPA helps complete any final reports, create invention statements, detail invoices, and outline the financial reports needed to close out the award.

A No-Cost Extension is a formal request to extend a project's end date, with no additional funding, so that approved work already underway can be completed. It should never be requested solely because funds remain unspent — sponsors expect a clear programmatic reason tied to finishing the approved scope of work.

Explain clearly what remains to be done, why it needs more time, and how it connects to the project's originally approved scope of work — not simply that funds are left. Sponsors are far more likely to approve a request that reads as a continuation of approved work than one that reads as an attempt to spend down a remaining balance.

As a rule of thumb, 60 to 90 days before your current award end date, though the exact window depends on the sponsor. Awards that involve a subaward need even more lead time, since any extension has to flow down to the subrecipient afterward.

Contact your ORSPA Post-Award contact once the extension is confirmed on the prime award. ORSPA will coordinate a subaward amendment with the subrecipient to extend their period of performance to match, and will confirm the subrecipient's compliance documentation is current before the amendment is issued.

The most common reasons are: the sponsor's formal approval letter hasn't reached ORSPA yet, since a verbal or email indication on its own isn't enough to update the record; a compliance item — FCOI disclosure, ethics training, IRB, IACUC, or biosafety approval — has lapsed and needs to be renewed first; or a related subaward amendment is still being finalized. Check with your ORSPA Post-Award contact if it has been more than two weeks since you received sponsor approval.