The UMass Lowell Office of Research Administration (ORA) is responsible for reviewing all external proposal applications for compliance prior to submission. It is important to note ORA does not have the capability to review technical content. Below please find an outline of items ORA will and will not review. The items in the "Not Reviewed" section are solely the responsibility of the Principal Investigator (PI) to ensure they are prepared in accordance with the sponsor guidelines.
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Subcontractors vs. vendors vs consultants
Reviewed - Mandatory
Item | Details |
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Eligibility Requirements (PI specific and Institutional) |
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Institutional Data | Institutional Data is correct (DUNS, Tax ID, AOR, etc.) |
Budget (First draft must be on ORA internal template) |
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Cost Share (if applicable) |
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Budget Justification |
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Subrecipients |
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General |
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Reviewed - Time Permitting
- Sponsor requirements that do not cause system errors in portal
- Consistent formatting and fonts have been used throughout proposal
- Travel justification includes all details requested by sponsor (i.e. location, traveler names, airfare, per diem, conference fees, etc.)
- Standard UML language in budget justification, facilities, and other templates provided by ORA has been used
- Current & Pending or other Research Support sections (such as in NIH biosketch) has no expired projects meaning current project end dates have not passed and pending projects start dates have not passed
- “Look” recommendations: pictures are coming in fuzzy, wording is wrong, etc.
- Confirming with PI that a certain content in the technical portions of the proposal (e.g. “outcomes”) have been included if the solicitation requires or strongly recommends including it
- Classification: selecting early stage researcher or other classification that may not be accurate, but does not cause system error
Not Reviewed
Anything outside of the mandatory review criteria, including but not limited to the following:
- Project Description
- References
- Project Summary/Abstract
- Project Narrative
- Biosketches/CVs/Resumes
- Collaborators and Other Affiliations Document
- Current and Pending
- Facilities
- Data Management Plan
- Supplemental Documents required by a solicitation, i.e. – Multi-PI Plan, Collaboration Plan, Project Personnel, Appendices,
- Standard Letters of Support/Letters of Collaboration
- Human Subjects/Animals Documents
- Proposal documents from subrecipients that are not institutional compliance documents