Grant Specialists
Our mission is to help Life Science faculty and student researchers to identify funding opportunities, connect with external funding officers, develop competitive proposals, and easily navigate the process of internal approvals. Please feel free to reach out to us at LSGrants@byu.edu or stop by our office at 5006 LSB to get help!
One of the most tedious steps in proposal development is finding funding opportunities. In addition, it can take hours of searching for and reading solicitations to find an opportunity that may fit. High-quality proposals can score poorly simply because the research does not fit the opportunity well.
The Life Science grant specialists are trained to find the best funding opportunities for your proposal—by doing so, we can save you time and ensure the best chances of being awarded.
To submit a funding search request, complete this survey or email us at LSgrants@byu.edu.
Our team can assist with proposal development in multiple ways:
- Many faculty find it helpful for us to read through the solicitation/RFA/funding announcement and compile a list of required documentation for the funding opportunity. This eliminates errors, prevents rushed submissions, and increases the quality of proposals.
- The budget and budget justification can be stumbling blocks during proposal development. We specialize in budget development and can modify budgets to meet current rates (the Budget Planning Sheet can be a helpful tool for faculty).
Send us an email at LSgrants@byu.edu—we'd love to help!
Similar to other major universities, BYU requires internal approvals of proposals submitted by faculty. To simplify the process, we use Kuali. For a new faculty member or someone who hasn't submitted a proposal recently, using Kuali can be difficult and time-consuming—our team is here to eliminate these challenges.
We specialize in Kuali and can help with creating proposals, uploading budgets and documents, and all things required to begin the internal approvals process.
BYU’s Research Administration Office (RAO) has templates, tutorials, and walkthroughs for proposal development and Kuali. Many of the FAQs below link to the resources provided by RAO.
I am applying for a grant and need to create the proposal in Kuali—what do I do now?
You can login to the Kuali portal using your BYU credentials. The “Create Proposal” option is found under the Common Tasks tab.
- If the funding opportunity is in grants.gov, Kuali will connect to the grants.gov system and submit the proposal for you (this is a “system-to-system” proposal, or S2S). As a result, the entire proposal can be housed in Kuali and will only need to be submitted once.
- If the funding opportunity is with a non-federal funder or not found in grants.gov, a proposal will still need to be created in Kuali. Only a basic proposal is required in Kuali to submit for internal approvals (budget, budget justification, and scope of work).
- If the funding opportunity is in grants.gov, Kuali will connect to the grants.gov system and submit the proposal for you (this is a “system-to-system” proposal, or S2S). As a result, the entire proposal can be housed in Kuali and will only need to be submitted once.
- More detailed instructions can be found on RAO’s page.
Does BYU have any resources for finding funding opportunities that fit my research interests?
- If you need new funding options, email us at LSgrants@byu.edu. We would love to learn about your research interests and better understand what funding opportunities would best fit you. The Research Development Office (RDO) also has seminars and resources to find funding.
What is BYU’s indirect cost rate?
- BYU’s current indirect cost rate is 51.5%.