UD Proposal Development Guide

Remember, it takes time and effort to develop a successful proposal — in fact, proposal success rates average 20–33%, depending on the field. Funding agencies reject half the proposals they receive because the applicant did not follow instructions or the proposal did not match the funding program.
However, the rewards for garnering research funding can be great, enabling you to explore new frontiers, instruct your students in the conduct of research, and yield new discoveries and knowledge of benefit to society.
*All proposals submitted to external sponsors from the University of Delaware, regardless of the amount, source of funding or the type of project must be reviewed and approved by the Research Office in accordance with UD’s External Sponsorship and Grant policy. For a proposal to be submitted, a proposal record must be created in the UD grants module system. This will originate a form to route for approval of the proposal submission.
Upcoming Events
NIH PROPOSAL CHECKLIST (download pdf)
Forms H effective January 25, 2023
Category | Items |
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SF424 RR – REQ’D |
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RR Performance Sites – REQ’D |
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RR Other Project Information – REQ’D |
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RR Key Persons – REQ’D |
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NIH Salary Cap |
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RR Budget – Use when required or allowed by the solicitation |
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PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information – REQ’D when research involves human subjects |
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PHS398 Modular Budget – Use when required or allowed by the solicitation |
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RR Subaward Budget Attachment – REQ’D when a subaward is included and the RR Budget is used PHS398 Cover Page Supplement – REQ’D PHS398 Research Plan – REQ’D only for Research, multi-project, and SBIR/STTR applications |
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PHS Assignment Request – OPT’L Additional Forms |
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Feature | Notes |
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Font | Use an Arial, Helvetica, Palatino Linotype, or Georgia typeface are recommended, although other fonts (both serif and non-serif) are acceptable. Font size must be 11 points or larger. (A Symbol font may be used to insert Greek letters or special characters; the font size requirement still applies.) |
Type Density | Type density, including characters and spaces, must be no more than 15 characters per linear inch. Type may be no more than six lines per vertical inch. |
Paper Size and Margins | Use standard paper size (8 ½" x 11). Use at least one-half inch margins (top, bottom, left, and right) for all pages. No applicant-supplied information can appear in the margins. |
Page Formatting | Use only a standard, single-column format for the text. Do not include any information in a header or footer of the attachments, including page numbers. |
Text Color | No restriction, although black and other high-contrast text colors are recommended since they print well and are legible to the largest audience. |
Figures, Graphs, Diagrams, Charts, Tables, Figure Legends, and Footnotes | may have a smaller type size but it must be readily legible and follow the font typeface requirement. |
File Attachments | All proposal attachments should be in PDF form. File names can contain the following: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore, hyphen, space, period, parenthesis, curly braces, square brackets, tilde, exclamation point, comma, semi colon, apostrophe, at sign, number sign, dollar sign, percent sign, plus sign, and equal sign. NIH recommends avoiding the use of ampersand. Filenames must be 50 characters or less (including any spaces between words) and you can only have single spaces between words in filenames. |
Hyperlinks and URLs | Hyperlinks and URLs are only allowed when specifically noted in the solicitation. The use of them is typically limited to citing relevant publications in biosketches and publication lists. They are almost always prohibited in page-limited attachments. |
Page Limits | Adhere to page limits as defined by the solicitation or here: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/how-to-apply-application-guide/format-and-write/page-limits.htm |