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Procedure 20002: Proposal Review, Approval, and Submission

1. Introduction

Responsible Office: Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP)

Responsible Official:  Director Pre-Award

Effective Date:  Aug. 22, 2011

Revision Date:  Feb. 1, 2026

2. Scope

This procedure applies to faculty submitting proposals, department and institute administrators and officials, OSP personnel, and compliance offices.

3. Summary

Prior to submission to a sponsor, the university must certify that all required compliance elements are completed, including investigator trainings, financial disclosures, outside professional activities, foreign affiliations, and collaborator relationships. 

Budgets must adhere to the cost principles defined in the federal regulations, as codified in the Uniform Guidance and, where applicable, the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) or sponsor-specific requirements. 

4. Procedure

To ensure sufficient time for compliance and complete reviews of proposal documents, proposal documents must be provided no later than the timelines set forth below:

  • Seven business days prior to sponsor submission due date: subawards and cost share amounts for the budget, if applicable, must be collected by the principal investigator/department and submitted to OSP via Summit Proposals. Note: obtaining cost sharing commitments may require several weeks; therefore, arrangements must be made well in advance of the sponsor submission date)
  • Five business days prior to the sponsor submission due date: Complete and final proposal documents—including the final budget, complete and final administrative forms required by the sponsor, department approvals, and a substantially completed technical proposal (defined below)—must be submitted to OSP via Summit Proposals.
  • Two business days prior to the sponsor submission due date: The final technical proposal must be submitted to OSP.  
  • One business day prior to sponsor submission due date:  All required corrective actions identified by OSP and/or a compliance office must be completed and resubmitted to OSP for final review and proposal submission. 

Departments, colleges, and institutes may impose earlier deadlines for their internal approval requirements for proposal submissions prior to submitting to OSP. Consult those units for any such timelines beyond those imposed by this procedure. 

If Virginia Tech’s internal proposal document deadlines are not met and there is insufficient time for a thorough review to ensure that Virginia Tech is compliant with all proposal and agency requirements, the proposal will not be submitted. In unusual circumstances, exceptions may be granted for later deadlines, as outlined below.

5. Exception Process

Exception to Meeting the Deadlines

When there is an extenuating circumstance beyond the control of the principal investigator, OSP and the compliance offices will attempt to accommodate a request to submit some proposal documents later than the standard deadlines.  Examples of extenuating circumstances include: 

  • A documented request from a sponsor with a proposal deadline with less than ten business days notice to principal investigator.
  • There is an opportunity to join a proposal under submission by another institution and notice was not received within 5 business days of the sponsor due date. 
  • The principal investigator had a medical health emergency, death in the family, a natural disaster or extreme weather event, personal or family legal emergency, or severe technical failure that prevent work on the proposal. 

Process

In these rare cases of serious extenuating circumstances, the principal investigator must email a request for a compressed proposal deadline schedule to the following recipients: their associate dean of research or institute director (or assigned representatives), the unit’s pre-award coordinator, and the OSP director of pre-award at OSPDirector@vt.edu.

Exception requests must specify the circumstances for the request and revised dates for document submission. Requests will be approved or denied by the Office of Sponsored Programs within one business day, with approval contingent on OSP and the compliance offices’ ability to accommodate requests based on workloads and required compliance reviews.

If a proposal is not submitted due to inadequate time for review of submitted documents (including documents corrected at OSP’s request), OSP will immediately notify the principal investigator and provide a brief written email explanation and suggestions for future improvements to meet deadlines, with a copy to the associate dean for research and the Office of Research and Innovation.

6. Definitions 

  • Sponsor’s submission due date: The date and time after which the sponsor will no longer accept proposals. In cases in which Virginia Tech is a subcontractor, the sponsor’s due date will be determined by the submitting institution.
  • Substantially completed technical proposal: Contains sufficient detail for compliance review, including a near-final draft of the main technical narrative, project objectives, methodology, deliverables, and finalized budget, timelines, and qualifications of personnel. References and bibliography need to be substantially completed but not final.
  • Final technical proposal: Fully completed, typographical error-free, and submission-ready document that meets all agency requirements and adheres to the solicitation’s format requirements and page limits, including appendices.
  • Extenuating circumstances: Documented conditions beyond the principal investigator’s control, such as medical emergencies, natural disasters, or sponsor-imposed short deadlines.

7. Roles and Responsibilities

  • Principal investigator: Responsible for initiating the proposal in Summit Proposals as early in the process as possible and for preparing proposal documents in sufficient detail and sufficiently in advance to allow adequate review. A principal investigator is responsible for understanding that proposals require their collaboration for the development of project budgets and administrative elements of proposals, such as curricula vitae, reports of other commitments of the investigator, and the documentation of commitments from co-investigators or collaborators at other institutions.
  • Department, college, and institute research administration staff: Responsible for supporting proposal development, tracking deadlines, and notifying OSP of at-risk submissions, which can include unresponsive investigators.
  • Department, college, and institute officials: Responsible for ensuring that local units abide by this internal deadline procedure. These officials can include financial and administrative officers, along with department chairs, institute directors, or equivalents.
  • Office of Sponsored Programs: Responsible for developing and communicating this deadline procedure regarding timely submissions to ensure that the research community understands that continued productive engagement with our sponsors requires the broad administrative coordination of multiple Virginia Tech offices. OSP will lead the thorough review of proposals and budgets prior to submission and coordinate with other offices that are required to perform compliance reviews.
  • Associate deans for research and institute directors: Review and endorse or reject exception requests.
  • Compliance offices: Administrative units within the Office of Research and Innovation that will review proposal documentation and advise OSP of any findings that require action prior to proposal submission.

8. Enforcement

If a principal investigator, department, or institute repeatedly fails to meet deadlines, OSP may elevate concerns to the appropriate associate dean for research, institute director, and/or senior vice president for research and innovation for resolution.

Only individuals with delegated signature authority under Policy 3015: University Contract Signature Policy and Procedures may submit proposals on behalf of Virginia Tech. Unauthorized submissions may result in institutional rejection of the proposal or award. Virginia Tech reserves the right to decline any award resulting from an unauthorized submission.

10. Approval and Revisions

This procedure was updated and revised to address changes required for federal proposal reviews and was developed by a working group of subject matter experts after benchmarking peer R1 institutions and reviewed by senior Office of Research and Innovation leadership, associate deans for research, and institute directors. OSP will review this procedure annually and update as necessary.

The revision was approved by the assistant vice president for research and innovation and director of the Office of Sponsored Programs on Dec. 8, 2025.

11. Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked questions can be found on the Office of Sponsored Programs website.