What Defines a Sponsored Programs Agreement?
Sponsored programs agreements include grants, contracts, sub-awards, and cooperative agreements. A sponsor or funder may be a government entity (international, federal, state, or local), a foundation, a private corporation, or a non-profit organization such as another university or independent research institute.
Submitting a Grant Application
Full grant applications must be received in the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research (OSPR) at least five business days before sign-off is needed.
Applications should include:
- The Internal Grant Proposal Summary Form, with all necessary signatures
- A Financial Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form from each Clark person written into the grant
- A budget*
- A final (or close to final) narrative
- Certification pages
- Draft of any required letter of support that must be signed by the dean
*Note:
1. If allowable by the funder, it is Clark’s policy to add a 3% cost of living increase to each subsequent years of a grant budget. This increase is for the grant budget only, it does not impact any personal salaries you receive from Clark.
2. If allowable by the funder, for graduate student employees add the health insurance expense to the budget.
3. For graduate and undergraduate student employees working on a grant in the summer, add 9.7% fringe to the budget.
Below, check out our Proposal Preparation Resources.
Our Services
OSPR provides faculty with individual notices of funding opportunities, conducts individualized funding searches using various databases, and trains faculty, staff, and graduate students to use grant databases for funding searches. OSPR also works closely with Corporate and Foundation Relations to identify support from private sources for sponsored programs.
OSPR works with faculty, staff, and students to prepare proposals for sponsored projects. This can involve serving as a liaison to sponsors for insight on funding opportunities, providing strategic advice on preparing proposals, facilitating the creation of teams of participants for collaborative projects, writing and editorial assistance for large institutional grants, and light editing for individual submissions.
OSPR has primary oversight responsibility for the timely review of proposals submitted on behalf of the institution. The review process is designed to ensure that the application conforms to university and sponsor guidelines with respect to academic appropriateness of the project, commitments of faculty and staff time, budgetary provisions, requirements for space and facilities, and special considerations for review as human subjects, animal use, proprietary data, and hazardous materials.
OSPR negotiates terms and conditions for all awards and subawards with sponsors to ensure a mutually acceptable award document. The office is also primarily responsible for negotiating subawards to institutions when Clark is the primary recipient of a grant or contract.
The Office has several post-award responsibilities, including approvals for rebudgeting and no-cost extensions, resolving administrative problems that may arise during the course of a project, and overseeing non-financial reporting on sponsored projects. OSPR also works closely with Grant Accounting to ensure that the financial management of awards meets both Clark and sponsor requirements.
In addition to the above services, OSPR:
- Organizes campus informational meetings on grant writing, funding opportunities, using electronic grant-related resources, grant management issues, and other topics germane to sponsored program activity at Clark.
- Maintains a grants management database that can provide members of the university community with timely information pertaining to sponsored program activity at Clark.