PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT RESOURCES

This website offers proposal development resources for Entomology researchers. It is *not* intended to be a comprehensive guide! Take advantage of what you find useful, and feel free to let Andy know if you have suggestions for corrections and/or additional resources. 
ENTM ROUTING TIMELINE & OTHER details
Below is a basic timeline for routing proposals in the Entomology Department. It can be adjusted as needed. Early submissions are very much welcome!

AS SOON AS YOU DECIDE TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

Send Andy an e-mail with:
  • Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), Solicitation, RFP, RFA - whatever you want to call it!
  • Official sponsor deadline, and note whether you plan to hit that deadline or want to submit early.
  • List of the UMD senior/key personnel.
  • Whether there will be subawards involved*
  • Any known submission details: Andy will initiate the proposal is Kuali Research (KR) and, if applicable, the sponsor's submission system. For all federal systems except for Grants.gov and any other sponsors with their own submission systems (e.g., Northeast SARE), Andy will need the lead PI's login information to access the system and create, populate, and route the proposal. For Grants.gov, Andy has his own delegated Workspace user access, and he will add you** as a proposal "participant".  
​
* If subawards are involved, they will need to send Andy the following items at least 2 weeks before the deadline:
  • UMD subrecipient commitment form
  • Statement of Work
  • Excel budget spreadsheet
  • Budget justification
  • F&A Rate Agreement (a.k.a., indirect cost rate agreement or NICRA)
  • Other subaward-related items, as applicable depending on the sponsor, e.g.:
    • Senior/key personnel documents (e.g., Biographical Sketch, Conflict of Interest, Current & Pending Support, and Letters of Commitment)
    • Other subaward-specific items (e.g., Equipment; Facilities & Other Resources; etc.)
    • Sponsor-specific budget formats (e.g., grants.gov R&R budget form)

** To create a Grants.gov account and UMD affiliation, click here. Account setup, affiliation, and user roles for other systems can be found here. 

ROUTING PREP - 2 WEEKS BEFORE THE DEADLINE

Send Andy an e-mail with:
  • Draft budget spreadsheet & budget justification for compliance review
  • Final subaward materials (see above)
  • Yes/No answers to the following questions: 
    1. Is fieldwork involved in the proposed project? If yes, does any of the fieldwork take place on a UMD Research Farm?
    2. Will chemicals (of any kind, including basic laboratory chemicals, reagents, etc.) be used in the proposed project?  If yes, will any UMD project personnel (i.e., not UMD Research Farm staff) apply pesticides?
  • For multi-PI projects: How much DRIF/credit each senior/key personnel should get for the proposal in Kuali Research. This is not the same as % effort, FTE, person months, etc. If the proposal is awarded, and there are indirect costs, this tells UMD’s Sponsored Programs & Accounting office what percentage of the DRIF generated should go to each unit when allocations are made.​
  • For off-campus projects: Complete addresses of all off-campus field site locations. Here "off-campus" means that a significant portion of the project is taking place at an off-campus location for 3 or more consecutive months and that you are therefore using one of UMD's federally negotiated off-campus indirect cost rates (see Budget Development section for more details). 
  • For USDA-NIFA proposals: List of keywords (limited to 100 characters).
​
​​Kuali Research Certification: Each UMD senior/key personnel will receive an e-mail from the KR system requesting that they "certify" the proposal.

INITIAL ROUTING - 6 BUSINESS DAYS BEFORE THE DEADLINE

Send Andy an e-mail with:
  • Final proposal title and project dates (mm/dd/yyyy - mm/dd/yyyy)
  • Final budget spreadsheet
  • Final budget justification
  • Final versions of all proposal documents*

​​* Note: Experience shows that you can continue working on the project narrative until 24 - 48 hours before the deadline. But keep in mind that our Contract Administrator (CA) in ORA will not review your proposal until it is 100% final in both KR and the sponsor's submission system (if applicable), so the sooner Andy can release your proposal to our CA, the longer they have to review it thoroughly.

FINAL ROUTING - 24-48 HOURS BEFORE THE DEADLINE

Send Andy an e-mail with:
  • The final version of the project narrative. Andy will upload this final piece to both Kuali Research and to the sponsor's proposal development system as applicable, and he will notify our CA that the proposal is ready for review. 
  • Your availability leading up to the deadline. ​Our CA typically finds at least 1 or 2 things for us to address before submission. If they are related to document formatting, Andy will take care of them. But if the issues are related to the budget or technical narrative, Andy will need to be able to get in touch with you.

Either our CA or Andy will notify you when the proposal is submitted! See below for details about proposal development archiving. 

GOOGLE DRIVE PROPOSAL ARCHIVE

When you inform Andy that you will be submitting a proposal, he will create a Google Drive folder that is structured with subfolders based on his reading of the sponsor's Request for Proposals documents. The folder will contain internal and sponsor-specific templates as needed, and he will populate the subfolders with the proposal elements as he receives them from you. Upon submission, Andy will insert submission confirmation details, copy the Google Drive folder and share it with you for your records. 
BUDGET DEVELOPMENT
Each section below corresponds to the major components of a proposal budget. You should use these as a guide to populating your Excel budget spreadsheet and writing your budget justification, both of which are required by ORA regardless of whether they are by the sponsor.

TEMPLATES
  • Basic Excel Budget: Basic spreadsheet laid out like a typical federal proposal budget. There are no auto-calculating formulas, but ORA does want to see how calculations are made, so you will need to enter them for at least fringe benefits, category totals, and indirect costs. Salary calculations are also useful for ORA to track. Make sure to use Excel's =ROUND( function in any cells that includes formulas to remove pesky cents (many proposal systems do not allow them anyway). 
  • Budget Justification: This is a basic layout for a federal proposal budget justification. One could argue that this template is overkill, but it includes everything ORA and/or the sponsor would be looking for. You can remove categories that are not relevant to your budget and rearrange based on sponsor-specific categories.  

SALARIES & WAGES

  • ​​Base Salaries & Effort: In addition to the specific amount of salary requested, you should also show the base salaries (and indicate whether they are 9- or 12-month), along with the % Effort or % FTE. Most sponsors report effort in "Person Months".
  • ​Cost of Living Allowance (COLA): Unless there are budget limits, ENTM Principal Investigators typically include a 2 – 3% COLA from year to year.
  • Senior/Key Personnel:
    • Note that some sponsors (e.g., NSF) limit the amount of salary senior/key personnel can budget.
    • Unless the sponsor specifically states otherwise - either in the proposal solicitation or in their sponsor-wide policies/guidelines - all UMD personnel proposing to commit effort to a project must budget salary and fringe benefits in proportion to the level of effort committed. 
  • Postdoctoral Associates: The minimum starting salary for Postdoctoral Associates is currently $47,476. For reference, the current NIH NRSA salary scale for postdocs can be found here.   
  • ​Undergraduate Research Assistants: Undergraduate Research Assistants should be budgeted at an hourly wage (link) for a given number of hours during a specific time of the project year (academic year, over the summer, or throughout the calendar year).
  • Graduate Research Assistants: 
    • Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) stipends are budgeted according to the categories below (current as of 7/1/2023). ​
    • If you are budgeting a GRA during the Academic or Calendar Year, you must also budget tuition remission. 
Graduate Student Category
​Academic Year
Summer ​
Calendar Year
MS Students
$28,384.01
$6,689.55
$35,073.56
PhD Students, Pre-Candidacy
$28,498.63
$7,260.91
$35,759.54
PhD Students, Candidacy
$29,043.06
$7,402.46
$36,445.52

FRINGE BENEFITS

  • ​​​UMD has Fringe Benefit Rates approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) with an effective date of 07/01/2023. Fringe benefits include health insurance, FICA, unemployment, workers’ compensation, retirement, terminal leave payout and employee assistance and are calculated on the requested salary amount. Tuition Remission is a UMD fringe benefit but is not included in the fringe calculation and is budgeted separately as applicable (see Other Direct Costs below). The current UMD fringe benefit rates are as follows:
Personnel Category
Fringe Benefit Rate (% of Salary)
Faculty (Summer), Graduate Students (Summer), hourly Undergraduate Research Assistants & other hourly personnel
5.90%
Faculty (Academic or Calendar Year), Postdoctoral Associates & other salaried faculty titles
30.80%
Non-faculty staff positions
36.20%
Graduate Students (Academic or Calendar Year)
22.10%

EQUIPMENT

  • ​​​This category is for individual equipment items over $5,000 each. Equipment items less than $5,000 should be itemized in Other Direct Costs > Materials & Supplies. Equipment costs should be individually named and justified in the budget justification.

TRAVEL

  • For domestic travel to field research sites, you have the option to estimate costs based on:
    • The total mileage * current UMD mileage rate ($0.67/mile) for your personal vehicle.
    • UMD Motor Transportation Services rates
  • For domestic travel to conferences, if you know the destination, your estimate should include the cost of conference registration, airfare, accommodations, ground transportation, and per diem. These estimated costs should be broken out in the budget justification.
  • For international travel to conferences, in addition to the details above, make sure to indicate what country you will be traveling to.  These estimated costs should also be broken out in the budget justification.

PARTICIPANT SUPPORT COSTS

  • ​​This is a very specific category of costs (link), and we don’t typically use it. That doesn’t mean we can’t, but please ask before going down this road.

OTHER DIRECT COSTS

  • ​Materials & Supplies: This category includes the typical field and laboratory consumable research supplies, but it also includes such costs as printing/copying, shipping, small equipment items (including computers), etc. Small equipment items (< $5,000 per item) and other materials & supplies of particularly high value should be individually named and justified in the budget justification.
  • Publication costs: This category is typically reserved for the cost of publishing peer-review journal articles. (Printing/copying costs should be budgeted under Materials & Supplies and justified in the budget justification.)  
  • Consultant Services: See Subawards/Consortium/Contractual Costs below.  
  • Computer Services: This category would include such things data storage, data cruncher time, etc. Details of these costs should be clearly described in the budget justification. 
  • Subawards/Contractual Costs: This category is for a portion of the budget that is contracted to an outside entity. The determination as to whether the outside entity is a subaward, contractor, or consultant depends on a number of conditions (here). The contribution of the subaward, contractor, or consultant should be clearly described in the budget justification, and the following should be provided:  
    • Subawards: A complete subaward package as described in the ENTM Routing Timeline tab. 
    • Contractual Services: An official letter describing the contractual services provided, including the cost determination. 
    • Consultants: An official letter describing the consultant services provided, including the cost determination.
  • Equipment/Facility Rental User Fees: This category typically includes UMD Greenhouse space rental. Details of these costs should be clearly described in the budget justification.   
  • Alterations & Renovations: This category is rarely - if ever - used...
  • ​Other - Tuition Remission: Graduate Research Assistants are entitled to up to 10 credits of tuition per semester at the current rate ($844.56/credit), and a 5% increase in costs should be budgeted from year to year. 
    • MS/pre-candidacy PhD students tend to take 8 credits/semester, so it is reasonable to budget for 8 instead of 10 credits if there are budgetary limitations; however, be aware that if a student takes more than 8 credits in a given semester, the additional costs will be charged to the grant.  
    • PhD candidates (i.e., passed the qualifying exam) are automatically registered for 6 credits of ENTM899 at a lower flat rate ($1,377.00), so it is reasonable to budget this amount if there are budgetary limitations; however, be aware that if the student takes additional credits or if you switch to an MS/pre-candidacy PhD student, their tuition costs will be charged to the grant. 

TOTAL DIRECT COSTS (TDC)

  • ​​This is the sum total of personnel salaries & wages, fringe benefits, equipment, travel, participant support costs, and other direct costs. The Total Direct Costs serve as the base for calculating indirect costs using sponsor-specific rates.

MODIFIED TOTAL DIRECT COSTS (MTDC)

  • This is the Total Direct Costs minus the sum total of individual equipment items greater than $5,000, tuition remission, participant support costs, and the portion of each subaward in excess of $25,000. The Modified Total Direct Costs serve as the base for calculating indirect costs using UMD's federally negotiated indirect cost rates (see below)

INDIRECT COSTS

  • Unless specified in the sponsor’s Request for Funding Announcement (RFA), you should use the appropriate UMD federally negotiated indirect cost rate applied to the Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC). 
    • ​On-Campus Research
      • 56.0% MTDC from 7/1/2023 to 6/30/2026
    • ​Off-Campus* Research:
      • Remote (> 50 miles outside of College Park) = 26% MTDC
      • Adjacent (< 50 miles of College Park) = 27.5% MTDC
      • *Off-Campus: “For all activities performed in facilities not owned by the organization and to which rent is directly allocated to the project(s), the off-site rate will apply. Projects partially performed off-site are apportioned between their on-site/off-site components when projects activity is conducted off-site for at least three consecutive months.” You will need to provide the full addresses of all off-campus locations and indicate which, if any, are UMD Research Farms.​
  • USDA Restrictions on Indirect Costs​
    • USDA funding programs typically cap indirect costs at rates lower than UMD's federally negotiated rates.
    • USDA-NIFA generally limits indirect costs to the lesser of:
      • The sum of indirect costs resulting from the application of UMD's federally negotiated rates and those resulting from the application of any federally negotiated subaward rates, or
      • 30% of total funds requested (calculated as 42.857% of the Total Direct Costs), including the indirect costs charged by subaward institutions.
      •  This is not straightforward and is best explained by example (coming soon). 
    • Some USDA programs (e.g., Northeast SARE) limit indirect costs to 10% of the total funds requested, which is equivalent to 11.11% of the Total Direct Costs.
    • USDA-APHIS typically limits indirect costs on cooperative agreements to 15% of the total funds requested, which is equivalent to 17.647% of the Total Direct Costs.
    • Generally speaking, it is important to read the section of the RFA on indirect costs very carefully to be clear on how rates should be applied. If it does not state the indirect base type (e.g., it just says "indirect costs are limited to 10%"), you will need to contact an authorized representative to inquire. 
  • Other Sponsor Indirect Restrictions​
    • Other sponsors may limit indirect costs as well; however, such limitation needs to be officially and clearly documented either in the sponsor’s funding solicitation or in the sponsor’s general funding guidelines (e.g., an official policy document, a website, etc.). An e-mail from someone at the sponsor or by word of mouth does not count as documentation.

TOTAL FUNDS REQUESTED

  • This is the sum of the Total Direct Costs and the Indirect Costs. The Modified Total Direct Costs are not used in this calculation.

COST SHARING/MATCHING

  • Generally speaking, this is complicated! Not impossible, but as anyone will tell you, it's complicated. If a funding opportunity explicitly requires it - or in some cases strongly suggests it without requiring it - start talking to Debbie Thompson and your ORA Contract Administrator as soon as possible. 
  • Learn more about cost sharing/matching here.
QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
APPLICANT ORGANIZATION (UMD)
  • University of Maryland, Department of Research Administration, Division: Research, 3112 Lee Building, 7809 Regents Drive, College Park, MD 20742-5141, County: Prince George's, Congressional District: MD-004
 
PERFORMANCE SITE LOCATION (ENTM)
  • University of Maryland, Department of Entomology, 4112 Plant Sciences Building, 4291 Fieldhouse Drive, College Park, MD 20742-4454, County: Prince George's, Phone: 301-405-3913, Fax: 301-314-9290, Congressional District: MD-004
 
AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVES
  • Joeleen Grant-Paterniti, Contract Manager, University of Maryland, Office of Research Administration, 3112 Lee Building, 7809 Regents Drive, College Park, MD 20742-5141, Phone: 301-405-6886, Fax: 301-314-9569, E-mail: [email protected] [for external proposal routing systems, use: Phone: 301-405-6269, E-mail: [email protected]]
 
IMPORTANT NUMBERS
  • EIN: 1520710851-A1 (use this for PHS sponsors)
  • TIN: 52-6002033 (use this for non-PHS sponsors)
  • DUNS: 79-093-4285 (don't use this anymore!)
  • UEI: NPU8ULVAAS23
  • ASAP: 2451208
 
FEDERAL COGNIZANT AUDIT AGENCY
  • U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, Steven Zuraf, (301) 492-4858 ​

MPOWERING THE STATE
UNKNOWN KUALI RESEARCH (KR) SPONSOR CODE
  • 207756. Use this code when the sponsor is not in the KR system. Enter the code in the KR proposal and write to [email protected] with the sponsor details. They will generate a new sponsor code, at which point you can change the sponsor in the KR proposal.

Complete ORA Quick Reference Guide available here. 
SPONSOR-SPECIFIC RESOURCES
ORA RESOURCES
OFFICE OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION (ORA)
​The Office of Research Administration offers many resources for proposal development, including: 
KR RESOURCES

UPCOMING FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

Note: You can add this to your own Google Calendar by clicking the [+]GoogleCalendar button in the lower right-hand corner.
Department of Entomology 
University of Maryland 
4112 Plant Sciences Building 
College Park, MD 20742-4454
USA

Telephone: 301.405.3911 
Fax: 301.314.9290