Research development staff partner with faculty throughout proposal development — bringing knowledge of funders, offering strategic consultation, and helping build interdisciplinary teams. The specific support for any submission is tailored to your needs, the size and complexity of the proposal, and current capacity. The earlier you reach out, the more support is available.
Contact research development staff to get started.
Research development support includes:
- Finding funding: strategic consultation on three- and five-year funding plans, funder and competitive intelligence, recommended database and newsletter searches, and ongoing dissemination of relevant opportunities.
- Proposal development: solicitation analysis, competitive analysis of prior awards, tailored planning checklists and timelines, and detailed feedback on proposal narratives and supplementary documents.
- Connecting research teams: facilitating collaborations across campus and with external institutions, community organizations, and industry, and connecting you to the right University offices.
- Faculty development: capacity-building programming, including the NSF CAREER Series, NIH R-Series Cohort, Fellowship Proposal Writing Circle, and Give-and-Get Proposal Feedback Group.
Plan Your Timeline
The earlier you connect with research development staff, the more support is available. Use these windows to plan backward from your deadline.
3+ months out — full support available as approved
Strategy and project design, building research teams and partnerships, aligning the project to the solicitation, funder and program-officer intelligence, planning documents and timelines, and arranging external review. Starting here gives your proposal the strongest competitive position.
1–2 months out — development support
In-depth review and editing of drafts, help with supplementary materials such as data management and mentoring plans, and feedback on non-technical components.
Under 1 month — review support
High-level review and copy edits on near-final drafts. Most in-depth services require more lead time.
Write a Strong Proposal
- Writing a Successful Proposal — articulating your idea, methods, team qualifications, and significance.
- Application Review Process — understanding how reviewers read proposals, and writing with them in mind.
- Preliminary Proposals — when and how to prepare preliminary submissions such as letters of intent.
- Get expert review of your proposal. Research development staff arrange and fund expert external review of a near-final draft to sharpen its merits before submission.
- Serve as a grant reviewer. Reviewing for a funding agency is one of the best ways to learn to write a winning proposal.
Use Proven Templates and Resources
- Proposal Repository — components of successful funded proposals, shared by Syracuse University awardees (research development SharePoint; SU login required).
- Toolkits – funder-specific tools to assist faculty in understanding the funder and navigating the application process (research development SharePoint; SU login required).
- Templates & Checklists — standard technical and non-technical components, including team management plans, broader impacts, workforce development plans, data management and sharing plans, postdoc and graduate-student mentoring plans, and biosketches (research development SharePoint; SU login required).
- Strategic Intelligence — Externally-developed guides on funding programs, often with direct guidance from former funder staff.
- Data Management Plans — data management and sharing plans aligned to funder requirements.
- Research Computing and Storage — explore Research Computing resources and the Syracuse University Data Storage Finder.
- SciENcv – SciENcv is the required system for the development of biosketch and current and pending (other) supports forms for NSF, NIH, NASA, Department of Energy, USDA, and other federal agencies. For more information on using SciENcv see the Libraries Research Guide and the Office of Research guide for NIH biosketches.