The Office of Federal Relations has instituted an open and inclusive process for considering earmarked proposals from the various campuses, colleges, departments, centers, and institutes. Our goal is to make informed decisions based on a broad understanding of the needs and initiatives of our faculty.

The university is sensitive to concerns raised in the academic community about the efficacy of specifically directing congressional funds to the area of peer-reviewed scientific research. As such, the university abstains from and actively discourages project-specific requests within agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Anatomy of a Successful Project Request

Generally, successful project requests garner between $250,000 and $2 million per year for one to three years. Because opportunities for construction dollars are limited, projects that focus on research or public service usually have the best chances of success. Proposed projects should be relevant to the university's overall goals and objectives, as well as the goals and missions of the underlying federal program.

Proposals should have a well-developed "exit strategy" to obtain funding from other sources once the appropriations portion of the funding timeline has ended. Proposals should also demonstrate significant cost sharing and substantive partnerships with federal agencies, institutions of higher learning, and/or other outside partners. Finally, while a sponsor's ability to attract federal funding is an important metric of success, the specific items for which project funding is being requested should not be available directly through competitively awarded federal sources.

Successful proposals will meet most or all of the following criteria:

• Demonstrated excellence of the proposal and the relevant research track record;
• National recognition of investigators and/or program;
• Acknowledged centrality of the project to departmental, collegiate, and University missions;
• Compelling connection to federal agency programs; and
• Demonstrated interest of federal agency program officers.

Multi-college and interdisciplinary proposals are strongly encouraged and may be given extra weight, but only if the collaboration meets the criteria above (e.g., collaboration for collaboration's sake alone is not encouraged).

Likewise, collaborations with other institutions will be considered, but only if they strengthen the scientific or technical resources available to accomplish the proposal's goals. In the case of interdisciplinary, multi-college, or multi-institutional proposals, an electronic memorandum of understanding must indicate that all collaborators understand and agree to the roles they will play and the intended allocation of resources.

To learn how to submit a proposal for consideration, please visit Federal Agenda Proposal Submission.