Understand and communicate the compliance aspects of your project, such as intellectual property, inventions, human subjects, vertebrate animals, export controls, conflict of interest, etc. early on. There may be additional forms or notifications that must be completed at the proposal stage.

Research Compliance Training

As a UMass Amherst faculty, student, or staff involved in the conduct of research, you may be required to take compliance training prior to proposal submission. See our new Federal Research Security Training Requirements (Job Aid).

Special Approvals: Please complete the request for special approvals well in advance so that the required documentation can be uploaded to the Kuali record before routing. Examples of situations that require special approvals include:

• UMass Foundation (501c3) proposals require approval and coordination with Foundation Relations. See Applicant Organization section of Non-Profit Sponsors (Foundations, Institutes, and Associations) for additional information.
• Voluntary or Third-Party Cost Share requires a Cost Share Request
• F&A (Indirect Cost) Waiver or Reduction Cost Share Request Form
• VCRE Late Proposal Approval Request
• Conflict of Interest
• Export Controls
• Human Subjects protocol approval (may be pending at proposal submission; required prior to award)
• Animal Subjects protocol approval (may be pending at proposal submission; required prior to award)
• Training in the Responsible Conduct of Research
• NSF Safe and Inclusive Working Environments for Off-Campus or Off-Site Research
• Requirement by sponsor to approve award terms and conditions at proposal stage (contact @email or R&E Help Desk)
• Other Compliance approval processes

Intellectual Property

Consult with the university’s Intellectual Property Policy statement prior to discussing intellectual property issues with prospective sponsors, especially industry, and other non-federal sponsors.

Some industry sponsors will require the completion of a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before faculty and industry personnel collaborate on the proposal since potentially proprietary information could be exchanged between each party without the proper legal protections.

Confer with the UMass Innovation Institute (UMII) for assistance crafting and negotiating potential NDA’s.

If you have any questions regarding inventions, patents, licensing, start-up companies, and services for the creative arts, contact the Technology Transfer Office (TTO).

Inventions and Confidentiality

New inventions, patentable ideas, proprietary or confidential information should not be included in proposals unless necessary.  If sensitive information must be included, or if it is difficult to determine whether certain information is patentable or confidential, please bring it to the attention of the OPAS team.  In addition, please contact the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) as soon as possible about any potential inventions or patentable ideas you may wish to include. Grant applications are considered confidential, but federal grant applications constitute “publications” when a notice of award is issued, which may limit or destroy foreign patent rights. In most federal grant applications, publication can be avoided by simply checking a box, but other procedures may be needed when applying to other funding sources.

For your protection, a proprietary rights legend should be added to the cover page of your proposal. Two versions are provided here for your consideration:

1. This data shall be disclosed only to sponsor employees or outside evaluators under contract to the sponsor and shall not be duplicated, used or disclosed in whole, or in part, for any purposes other than to evaluate the proposal; provided that, if an award is made to this offer or as a result of, or in connection with, the submission of this data, the sponsor shall have the right to duplicate, use or disclose the data to the extent provided in the contract, grant or cooperative agreement. The data subject to this restriction is contained on page(s):
   
   And mark each page that is to be restricted with the following:
   Use or disclosure of proposal data is subject to the restriction on the Cover Page of this proposal.
   
   Or, when the proposal contains ideas and information that could lead to patent applications and stronger, more specific language is desirable, the following sample legend is recommended:
2. This document, or portions of it, contains confidential information that is or may become the subject of a United States patent application and that is important to future commercial efforts based on such confidential information. Accordingly, this document and the confidential information is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, Sections 552(b)(3) and (b)(4) of Title 5 of the United States Code and corresponding regulations of United States government agencies.

          Each page containing confidential information should be marked "CONFIDENTIAL".

Please load documentation into Kuali under Internal tab in the Attachment section to verify the basis for cost calculations, as well as their reasonableness:

Grad student calculation assumptions

Upload Kuali Calculator grad calculations if available; if it is unavailable, the below assumptions need to be detailed in the budget justification. The Kuali Salary Guide with grad calculator can be found here.

1. The hourly rate
2. The number of hours the grad student is working during the 38 academic year
3. The number of weeks the grad student is working during the 38 academic year
4. The number of hours the grad student is working during the 14 week summer
5. The number of weeks the grad student is working during the 14 week summer

Grad fringe and tuition fee are based on the hours worked in the AY and the summer, so we need the number of hours and weeks to assess if it has been budgeted correctly.

Subawards

Please collate all documents below into one PDF form per subrecipient. See also Collaborations and Required Documents.

• A UMass subrecipient form
• Letter of intent to enter into a consortium/subaward agreement on letterhead and signed by an AOR is recommended
• Statement of work
• Budget loaded into Kuali (on the sponsor's budget form if required)
• Budget justification loaded into Kuali
• Fringe rate agreement loaded into Kuali
• Indirect cost rate agreement loaded into Kuali
• Other forms as required by the solicitation (biosketch, current & pending form, collaborator and other affiliations form, facilities form).

Consultants

• A signed letter from the consultant providing details on the nature of their consulting activities and documenting the basis for their rates (hourly or daily rate, # days or hours consulting, etc.).

Unpaid Collaborators

• When a named collaborator is going to provide information, expertise, and the like in a proposal, a letter from the collaborator should be included as part of the proposal. More info on documenting collaborations.
• For NSF, proposers should include in the facilities form an aggregated description of the internal and external resources (both physical and personnel) that the organization and its collaborators will provide to the project, should it be funded

Fee for service

• A letter or formal quote from the vendor detailing the activities, services, or items to be provided and the basis for the charges.

Materials & supplies

• Basis of cost must be explained in the budget justification
• Supplies must be detailed so we can assess reasonability, allowability and allocability

Travel

• Basis of cost must be explained in the budget justification
• Travel should be broken down by specific costs such as airfare, per diem, hotel, ground transportation, parking, etc. Provide detail so we can assess reasonableness, allowability and allocability

UMass Amherst Cost Center Recharges (UMass Facilities Fees)

• Cost center sheets for the current year with costs highlighted
• If there is not a currently approved cost center, please include a cost quote

Cost share

• AY cost share form for each PI committing cost share, signed and loaded into Kuali.
• Kuali budget shows cost share
• Voluntary cost share is approved in advance by the VCRE
• 3rd party cost share from a subrecipient has a letter committing to auditable cost share
• 3rd party cost share not from subrecipients must be approved by the VCRE
• If cost share is made from waiving indirect costs, approval of waiver is in Kuali

Indirect costs

• Indirect cost waiver loaded to Kuali if applicable
• Load sponsor's policy on indirect costs if non-standard
• See subrecipient requirements also

Limited submission

• Email from Office of Research Development (ORD) for federal sponsors, or from Foundation Relations for non-federal sponsors, confirming this proposal was selected for limited submission

Vendor Quotes

• Include vendor quotes

Equipment Quotes

• Include equipment quotes

Fabricated Equipment

• Include a separate detailed budget for fabricated equipment 
• Include a detailed justification for fabricated equipment within the budget justification for the proposal
• Complete the Kuali questionnaire for fabricated equipment