Timeline for Research Grant Application process

Most students underestimate the time UAR needs to review grant proposals and distribute funds. Even for a quarterly grant project, you may need to begin approaching faculty and drafting ideas several months before you intend to start the project.

See the following expanded example of a hypothetical timeline for a research project conducted over Spring Break.

Hypothetical Administrative Timeline

A Winter Quarterly Grant for an Off-Campus Project Involving Human Subjects, Conducted over Spring Break
Fall Quarter	Approach faculty; start recommended background work; enroll in an appropriate course in fieldwork methods
End of Fall Quarter	Start drafting proposal; solicit faculty letter; finish pre-fieldwork course work
Early January	Continue revising grant proposal. Apply for human subjects approval (latest recommended IRB deadline)
End of January	Submit all grant application materials. Receive Human Subjects approval and forward to UAR
Late February	Receive UAR approval, sign online contract, and provide evidence preparation for fieldwork
End of February	UAR requests grant payment through Student Financial Services
Early March	Receive grant payment
Early March	Purchase plane tickets
Late March	Project begins

As you can see, even when everything goes as planned, you must begin your application process quite early. For example, if you miss the January deadline for human subject protocols, you will not receive your human subject approval until the end of February. Therefore you won’t receive your check until mid-March at best. As a result, your plane tickets will be more expensive and UAR is unlikely to increase your budget to compensate for this. Similarly, if your proposal requires any sort of revision, your process will be delayed. If too many of these hurdles accumulate, you may not be able to carry out your research over Spring Break at all.

Starting the process in the previous quarter may seem excessive, but it is actually just barely sufficient!

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