Office of Research Services Offered - Office of Research

Services Offered

The Interdisciplinary Research Support (IRS) unit of the Office of Research coordinates the preparation of major grant proposals for large-scale, interdisciplinary research programs. The team works on grants and contracts that involve multiple schools, colleges, divisions, or institutions to support new research units, programs, or centers at UC Davis that are funded by major extramural research sponsors.

The IRS team is dedicated to serving faculty investigators through the entire proposal process: aiding the development of research, education, and outreach aims and programs; creating budgets and justifications; providing high-level and detailed editing; facilitating internal and external submissions processes; and advising on internal and sponsor policy. In addition, the IRS team connects Principal Investigators to other researchers and resources, both on and off campus, that add value to the research effort as a whole and increase the breadth and impact of research at UC Davis.

Examples of the services we provide to proposal teams include:

  • Identify the components required in the application. Typically, we develop a checklist of items that are required by the solicitation and, for each item, track progress toward completion
  • Create an outline for the intellectual content of the application, with standardized formatting for a polished finished product.
  • Develop a schedule for preparation of the grants or contracts. Working with the Principal Investigator and other members of the proposal team, we develop a schedule of deadlines for the first draft of the proposal narrative and successive iterations. These steps are important for the research team, as multiple layers of review ensure a high-quality final product.
  • Coordinate the assembly of contributions from the participating researchers. In these early phases of draft production, we carefully review the technical content to ensure that the proposed projects respond to the requirements of the funding agency, the scientific content is clear, and the different sections of the narrative “speak to one another” and use appropriate cross references.
  • Prepare the proposal budget, including programmatic justifications of budget elements.
  • Develop and generate overview figures, such as conceptual diagrams and organizational charts of the proposed program.
  • Provide templates and samples for some standard parts of the proposal, such as a management plan, post-doctoral mentoring plan, data management, etc.
  • Collect and edit standard forms required by the sponsor (biographical sketches, other support, resources and environment) for the participating researchers.
  • Edit all parts of the application for language, clarity and meaning, as well as spelling and grammar.
  • Prepare required forms and documents for UC Davis and sponsoring agency use (cost sharing, federal disclosure, etc.).
  • Assemble the complete application. This includes printing, photocopying, and packaging proposals to be mailed, or uploading proposals with electronic submissions.
  • Produce a PDF (with bookmarks) of the entire proposal document on CD-ROM.

In special circumstances, IRS services are also available à la carte. Please contact Sheryl Soucy-Lubell for more information.