Minnesota Robotics Institute Pre-Award

Proposal Requirements & Deadlines

All proposals must comply with the University of Minnesota Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA) requirements.

Plan Your Proposal

Access tools and timelines to prepare competitive submissions. University Mandated Deadline: Submit proposals to SPA by 9:00 AM, 3 business days prior to the sponsor deadline.

 Proposal Timeline:

• Ideally: 3 weeks before deadline: PI emails Pre-Award Specialist at [email protected] about plans to submit a proposal (should include solicitation number and link)

  • Pre-Award Specialist starts reviewing the solicitation

  • The Pre-Award Specialist creates a Team Drive for this proposal and a list of required documents to be included in it. 

  • Pre-Award Specialist creates the proposal in the appropriate online portal submission system (i.e., ASSIST, Research.gov, or Grants.gov)

• Ideally: 1 week before deadline: PI sends non-technical proposal materials to Pre-Award Specialist

  • PI and Pre-Award Specialist finalize the budget

  • Pre-Award Specialist routes PRF.

• Ideally: 1 day before SPA deadline: PI sends all remaining proposal materials to the Pre-Award Specialist

  • PI reviews the proposal and gives approval for the Pre-Award Specialist to submit the proposal to SPA

  • Pre-Award Specialist submits proposal to SPA for submission

Sponsor Deadline

PI and Pre-Award Specialist must stay in contact until the sponsor deadline in case of questions or changes requested by SPA. If either cannot be reached during this time, arrangements should be made to submit the proposal earlier.

• Proposal guidance 

• Subaward collaboration guidance

• SPA Proposal Deadline Calculator

• Proposal Routing Form (PRF) support

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Salary, fringe, and tuition cost guidance

• NSF/NIH document templates (biosketch, COA, etc.)

Build all required components for a complete proposal package

Submission & Routing Process

Understand how proposals move through MnRI and UMN systems.

Routing Chain (Typical Flow):

• Department Administration

• Department Head

• College/Dean Approval

• Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA)

MNRI Pre-Award Services

The Minnesota Robotics Institute provides support throughout the proposal process:

• Budget development

• Document formatting and review

• Online submission coordination

• Liaison support between PI and SPA

Current MnRI RFP