The mission of the SOM Grants & Contracts Office is to help faculty submit proposals and negotiate contracts by providing expertise and review services that help simplify the process, ensure compliance with sponsor guidelines, and promote the timeliness and competitiveness of grant submissions.
Pre-Award
During proposal development, the Grants & Contracts Team works with faculty members and SOM Department Research Assistants to consult on funding requirements, budget development, subcontracts, sponsor and university administrative policies. Grants & Contracts also works with campus offices to provide coordinated support to faculty who are seeking to develop agreements with sponsors to conduct clinical trials. Assistance in these areas includes sponsor negotiations in collaboration with MU Sponsored Programs Administration (SPA), which streamlines the approval process. To appropriately recover costs for clinical trials, the Grants and Contracts Office begins providing support prior to the budgetary negotiations with sponsors.
Before submission to SPA, Grants and Contracts reviews and approves proposals on behalf of the Dean of the School of Medicine. Departments should route all grant-related documents for review and approval through their assigned team member. This includes proposal submissions, LOI, JIT, RPPR, Other Support Document request, etc.
The Grants and Contracts Office uses a team approach to create a cohesive relationship between SOM departments and Sponsored Program Administration.
When preparing to submit a proposal, faculty and Department Research Assistants are asked to inform the Grants & Contracts Office of the upcoming proposal 30 days before the proposed deadline. In order to provide a thorough review resulting in the best application, the Grants & Contracts Office requires seven (7) working days before the sponsor deadline. This allows two business days for Grants & Contracts to review and work with the investigator and department to make any corrections, and five business days for SPA to review and submit to the sponsor.
Resources
- Team assignments – SPA Pre-Award Portfolio
- Department Research Administrators – SOM Department Contacts
Grant Proposal Library
The SOM maintains a library of successful (i.e., previously funded) grant proposals that can assist faculty members preparing grant proposals of their own. Proposals are available from three sources.
MU Proposals
The School of Medicine Grant Proposal Library is an online repository of successful read-only NIH proposals generously donated by SOM researchers. Accessible only with MU log-in credentials, the library allows grant writers to view examples of successful MU NIH grant applications. As the library continues to develop, more types of sample grant applications will be added as they are donated. Check back often to see additional examples of well-crafted grants.
If you are a successful grant recipient and would like to share a redacted, read-only version of your grant, please email Laura Franklin.
WUSTL Grants Library
Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) Grant Proposals are available through the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS). MU researchers can access selected grant proposals written by faculty members from WUSTL. To request a proposal of a specific type (e.g., R01, R21) and category (e.g., biochemistry, investigator-initiated clinical trial), please email Laura Franklin who will work with the WashU library staff to obtain the sample grant for you to use.
Proposals Made Available by NIH
NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) provides many examples of well-written, top-scoring research grant applications submitted from US medical schools. These include investigator-initiated awards (R01, R03, R15, R21, and R21/R33), training and career development awards (K01, K08, K99/R00, and F31), small business grants (R41, R42, R43, and R44), and cooperative agreements (U01). Examples include different categories of scientific investigation, including basic science, clinical, behavioral, and implementation science research. Each proposal is accompanied by the summary statement the PI received from NIH. In addition to complete grant proposals and summary statements, the site contains examples of key components of successful grant proposals, including:
- Data sharing plan
- Genomic data sharing plan
- Model organism sharing plan
- Letter to document training in the protection of human subjects
- Biosketch
- Other support page
- Scientific rigor section
- Authentication of key biological and/or chemical resources
- Project leadership plan for multi-PI grant applications
