Proposal Review, Approval, and Submission FAQs

The complete and final proposal must be provided to OSP five full business days prior to the sponsor deadline. Therefore, if the proposal is complete and final at 2 p.m. on Monday, the first full business day is the following day, Tuesday. If the proposal is complete and final by 9 a.m. on Monday, then the first full business day is Monday. The final technical proposal must be submitted two business days in advance of the sponsor submission deadline.  

The complete and final proposal has all the necessary approvals in Summit Proposals. All sections of the proposal are considered complete by the principal investigator and the department; no further edits are occurring on the budget or other forms.

OSP will submit the proposal as soon as it is ready to be submitted. A proposal is ready to be submitted when the final technical document has been provided, all other documents are complete, and all compliance reviews are complete.

No. The principal investigator would still need to make a formal request for an exception via the process outlined in Procedure 20002, as submission of the proposal also depends on proposal volumes for that date, available staffing, and compliance review requirements. OSP and the compliance offices will attempt to accommodate these rare exemptions.

Any proposal with a genuinely compressed sponsor timeline, or other serious circumstances outside the principal investigator’s control, may qualify for an exception request. OSP recognizes that many funding opportunities—especially those involving industry partners, third-party cost share, subawards, or complex compliance requirements—require more than 10 days to develop, and that a sponsor-provided window of fewer than 20 business days can still present significant challenges.

OSP will evaluate each exception request based on:

• The time available relative to the proposal’s complexity
• The documented circumstances that created the compressed timeline
• OSP and Compliance Office workload and capacity to provide a responsible review

The key factor is whether the timeline was unavoidably compressed, not whether it falls above or below a single numeric threshold.

The principal investigator should mark the “due date” as five full business days from the date it will be complete and final.

You should work with the principal investigator to make a formal request for exception via the process outlined in section 5 of Procedure 20002.

An unauthorized submission is a proposal submitted to the sponsor without the required OSP and compliance review and approval.

To ensure Virginia Tech meets all sponsor requirements at the time of proposal submission, all proposals must be reviewed and approved by OSP, including proposals submitted by memorandum of understanding (MOU) holders as outlined in their MOU document.

An unauthorized submission requires review and approval by the director of OSP before award acceptance and prior to the start of work to ensure the award aligns with Virginia Tech’s obligations to research sponsors. This includes unauthorized submissions that arrive with an award agreement. Virginia Tech reserves the right to decline any award resulting from an unauthorized submission.

There are times when sponsors send funding agreements without requiring a proposal. Such agreements must be reviewed and approved by OSP and can only be executed by an official with signature authority as set forth in Virginia Tech Policy 3015. 

The final technical portion is not due until two days before the sponsor deadline. Any time needed between two days before the sponsor deadline and the submission date is considered an exception to Procedure 20002 and must follow the exception process outlined in that procedure.

You should assume XYZ’s internal deadline is the proposal deadline. If the proposal is due to XYZ on Feb. 10 to meet its internal submission deadline procedure, then your proposal must be submitted to Virginia Tech OSP five full business days (and two business days for the fully complete technical portion) ahead of Feb. 10 to comply with Virginia Tech’s submission procedure.

Open-ended exception approvals are not granted. The exception request must specify when the documents will be submitted. If you receive an exception approval, OSP will attach a timeframe expectation to that approval. You do not have until the sponsor’s deadline to submit the proposal to OSP.

You should initiate your proposal in Summit Proposals as early as possible, but at least 10 business days before the deadline. The OSP team will need time to review the sponsor guidelines and work with you to develop the budget and other items so your proposal can be approved and finalized to meet the five-day deadline. As much notice as possible is always appreciated and may impact the decision if an exception is requested.

Yes. Even departments, institutes, or colleges that have support staff with an MOU still need to meet the same deadline. Budgets, proposal documents, and compliance reviews require the same level of approval, and those activities take time to complete.

To review and incorporate their information into Virginia Tech’s proposal and budget, you should have their complete information seven business days before the sponsor’s deadline.

To review and incorporate the sources of cost share into Virginia Tech’s budget, you need to have that information seven business days before the sponsor’s deadline.

As early as possible, but at least seven business days before the sponsor deadline, the principal investigator must send an email to their associate dean of research or institute director, the unit’s pre-award coordinator, and the director of pre-award.

The email must include an explanation of why the five-day deadline cannot be met. The principal investigator and their OSP pre-award associate will be notified of the decision by either their associate dean of research or the OSP director of pre-award.

A budget is considered approved when it has been accepted by both OSP and the principal investigator in Summit Proposals and routed for approval from the impacted departments, colleges, and institutes. Once the budget is approved, it cannot be changed.

Yes.

If proposal documents are not received by the deadlines, OSP will work with the departments and respective associate deans of research to advise the principal investigator of the missed deadline. The parties will collaborate on appropriate next steps, if any.