Over the years the Office of the Associate Vice President for Research has been involved in several interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals. The guidance given below draws on this experience. In brief, developing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals requires far more than developing a single-investigator award or a collection of single-investigator awards. Regardless of whether a sponsor’s call for proposals seeks a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach, the goal of collaboration is to produce outcomes that normally would not be achieved independently. Thus, a proposal in response to a call for multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research, that is a collection of parallel projects without any interaction among the investigators, is often considered not responsive to the announcement.
A successful multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary proposal requires several steps:
Formulating a theme and a set of objectives
A compelling theme that is responsive to the announcement provides the framework for the proposal. The set of the common goals define the work plan for the proposal.
While the theme may be rather broad and long term, the goals should be achievable within the award period.
Distribution of proposal preparation tasks
Once a set of objectives has been defined, the team should develop a distribution of tasks and responsibilities. For large proposals it is often useful to break the team into subgroups
with a leader. By dividing the team into subgroups, the proposal preparation task can be developed in a logical way. The subgroup leaders schedule meetings for the subgroups and report
to the overall Project Director. Each subgroup is responsible for developing a component of the proposal. It is also important that each subgroup is given clear directions on what they
need to produce, what the constraints are, and the time frame
for completing their assignment. At a minimum the instructions should include:
- scope of component(s) to be developed
- instructions on how to prepare the text (i.e., font, line spacing, margins)
- a page limit
- a budget allocation
- deadline by which the component has to be available for review by the team
Compilation of a coherent proposal and securing approvals
Many investigators have limited experience working in a team and may be accustomed to finishing a single-investigator proposal on the last day. In contrast, larger proposals
require a significant amount of time to prepare. Individual components need to be integrated into the overall proposal. The PI and subgroup leaders need time to edit the entire
proposal, prepare a single reference list, and format the entire document. The final compilation and preparation of large proposals can require several days since these center type
proposals are often several hundred pages in length, they often include numerous budgets, and lengthy appendices.
Extra time is needed to assure that the team has addressed all other requirements stated in the announcement, had adequate time to develop budgets, and secure all institutional approvals for the on-time submission to the sponsor. It is recommended that administrative staff begin securing all internal signatures as early as practical, collect letters of intent to collaborate from subcontracting organizations, and have budgets finalized, reviewed, and approved by Sponsored Programs as early in the process as possible.
Final complete proposals and internal (4-page and CID) forms are expected to be submitted to Sponsored Programs at least five business days prior to the sponsor’s deadline. It is an advantage to submit proposals early, as any errors detected by Grants.gov or the Sponsor’s electronic system can sometimes be corrected in time to resubmit a proposal before the deadline.
During this phase of proposal preparation, our Multidisciplinary Project Associate is ready to assist in specific ways. See Administrative Support for Multi-Million Dollar & Multidisciplinary Grant Applications.
