Supporting Grant Applications

The Office of Research and Innovation assists members of the University community in identifying potential sources of external funding and in obtaining information on the guidelines, procedures, and policies related to proposal development and submission.

The Office of Research and Innovation is the Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) for Duquesne University, and is responsible for reviewing all grant, contract and cooperative agreement research applications that Duquesne University faculty members submit to all funders. All grant and contract applications or proposals must be approved by the ORI prior to submission.

Notification Deadline

Principal Investigators (PI) intending to submit a proposal for external grant funding must contact the Office of Research and Innovation no less than two weeks in advance of a submission deadline. The intent to submit may be in the form of an email to any member of the ORI staff. This will permit the ORI to:

  • Assign a Grants Officer who will work with the PI and any Co-PIs on preparation and submission of the proposal.
  • Allow the Grants Officer time to read the Request for Proposal and determine any specific requirements.
  • Assign help with budget preparation and any external consulting which might be required.
  • Establish a schedule for document collection which may be required for submission of the proposal.
  • Failure to inform the ORI at least 2 weeks prior to a submission deadline may result in the proposal not being submitted.

Submission Deadline

All documents, support materials (including biosketches), budgets, and approval forms must be submitted electronically to the ORI, no less than five (5) working days prior to the funder's submission deadline.

For more information, read the RP1 - Procedure for Submitting External Grant Proposals.

Federal Sponsors

NIH, NSF, and other federal sponsors adhere strictly to submission deadlines. An application is not considered submitted until it is accepted error-free. The response time from grants.gov and eRA Commons can vary greatly depending on submission volume and NIH system status. Thus, it is imperative that applications be submitted well ahead of the submission deadline and that principal investigators make themselves available to us to correct application errors/warnings.

Applicants should confirm that they have an eRA Commons account at least six (6) weeks before the submission deadline. Contact Julie%20Christy (x1886) for assistance.

Please be advised that the NIH has released new guidelines for grant applications - Forms Version F. Also, for a quick reference as to the changes made to these guidelines from their previous version, refer to the "Significant Changes" section in the Table of Contents of each manual.

Important Items & Resources

Proposal Approval Form (PAF)
The PAF is a university requirement which must be completed and submitted to the ORI via email PAFFREEDUQUESNE prior to submission of all grant applications. All proposal components must be ready to submit a minimum of three days prior to the proposal deadline.

Frequently Requested Grant Information