Proposal Development

Washington University has a pre-award office to advise and assist researchers with proposal preparation. The Office of Sponsored Research Services (OSRS), formerly known as the Research Office (RO) and Grants & Contracts (G&C), provides communication, education, and assistance related to proposal development for the WUSTL research community.  


Research Gateway
The Research Gateway provides Washington University faculty and staff with efficient, single sign-on access to the resources necessary to propose, manage, and close-out research projects and satisfy compliance requirements.


Assessing the Impact of Research
Created by a team at Becker Medical Library, the site provides a suggested model for quantifying the impact of a specific research project conducted by an individual PI. The site provides an outline of available resources and tools for gathering information about the impact of your research in such areas as research output, knowledge transfer, clinical implementation, and community benefit. It also provides suggested strategies for enhancing research impact. While the site is specifically geared for basic and clinical biomedical research, the ideas and suggestions may be helpful to WU researchers from a variety of disciplines.


Institutional Data
Many funding agencies require specific information about Washington University. This is a list of frequently requested institutional information.


Proposal Development Resources *
This web site is a toolkit for researchers and administrators. It provides a number of features, including the ability to locate information about Washington University for agency forms; find samples of successful proposals and data sharing plans; locate financial and award information and trends; and more!

* Access to this site requires a WUSTL IP address


PDS Log-in via the Research Gateway 
Originally known as the Grants Budgeting (or G-Bud) System, the Proposal Development System (PDS) guides administrators in developing a sound and compliant budget. The system is intended to be flexible and comprehensive, yet streamlined.  PDS has the capability to calculate cost sharing, a change in fiscal years, primary/joint appointments, and appropriate facilities and administrative (F&A) rates and, to submit electronically, system-to-system (S2S), via Grants.gov.  Use of the PDS System is a required part of the University proposal review process.  Departments and schools may structure the routing of budgets according to department, school, and University policies. 


Scholarly Communications
The Scholarly Communications Group was initiated in Spring 2007 and is represented by librarians from the Danforth Campus Libraries and the Becker Medical Library. Some of the group's aims include providing author tools that will enable WU faculty, researchers, scientists and students to efficiently access, share, and transform content that results in new scholarly output; reducing barriers caused by publisher-imposed licensing restrictions; and, gathering and addressing concerns/questions from the WU community regarding copyright, author rights and author publication agreements.