Review and Submission Process

OPAS Review & Submission Process

• Once the proposal routing is initiated, it is imperative that the PI or their assistant monitor the routing to insure that the proposal is continuing through the approval process. OPAS does not receive your proposal until the PI, Co-PI’s, Department Heads and Deans have approved. 

• When the proposal is received at OPAS, the Proposal Intake Clerk reviews the materials to insure that the proposal is complete in accordance with the Sponsored Project Proposal Submission Requirements and Procedures (Five Day Submission Procedure). If the sponsor requires submission in a portal, OPAS requires access to the application for review and submission. Please add the OPAS reviewer to the portal application, route to OPAS with review and submit access (such as for Research.gov), or share PI credentials.  If it is complete, the proposal is assigned to an OPAS Pre-Award Administrator (reviewer) in Kuali. The PI and the Proposal Contact will receive an email that provides the name of the OPAS Pre-Award Administrator (reviewer) to whom the proposal has been assigned.  

• OPAS posts their Proposal Workload Assignments in the Kuali Dashboard so that you can be informed of the current deadline volume. 

• The next communication will be from the Pre-Award Administrator letting you know that they received the proposal and outlining when the final technical documents are needed and alerting you to any issues that they may have seen based on a quick review of the documents. 

• The proposal and related opportunity guidelines undergo a more thorough review. The Pre-Award Administrator will reach out to you with any required changes that need to be made. 

• Depending on the workflow, we make every attempt to submit a proposal the day before it is due. However, we are often faced with multiple submissions for the same deadline, and it is submitted the day it is due. 

• Once the Pre-Award Administrator’s review is complete, the proposal is forwarded to an OPAS Submitter or Director for approval for submission. If an electronic submission, the Submitter or Director submits. Other submission types are handled by other OPAS staff. 

When the proposal has been submitted, the PI will receive an email from the system alerting them of the submission. We will also provide a link for the PI to participate in a survey.

For a visual of the process within OPAS, please refer to the proposal flowchart. 

Late Proposals

• If your proposal is not received within the five day deadline, there is a late approval process that must be followed, outlined in the Sponsored Project Proposal Submission Requirements and Procedures (Five Day Submission Procedure).

• Late proposal requests will be accepted only in truly exceptional cases, on a case-by-case basis, and only if OPAS has reviewer availability without redirecting effort from other proposals. You must fill out a VCRE Late Proposal Approval Request form.

• If the proposal is approved under the late process, the proposal will not receive a sponsor proposal preparation compliance review due to the reduced time for staff review.  The proposal will be reviewed for policy, procedure, regulations and budgetary items only. It should also be noted that although the proposal was granted late approval, the timelines within the five day submission procedure for the final technical submission still remain in effect and need to be complied with.

Please Note: When a proposal is due in the middle of a specific date, OPAS treats it as though it is due the day before. This is to ensure the early cutoff time does not jeopardize submission. Please take this into account when calculating the five-day internal deadline.