Office of Sponsored Programs

About Us

OSP administers all federal, state, for-profit, nonprofit, and private foundations for faculty-led proposal submissions and awards involving research, education, community service, or other sponsor activities.

Services include:

Funding opportunities

• Assists faculty and staff in searching for funding opportunities, i.e. request for proposals, request for letters of intent, white papers, etc., that can support their research or extramural projects.
• Provides guidance on funding opportunity requirements.

Research compliance

• Ensures that the College is complying with all applicable regulations and policies regarding financial conflict of interest (FCOI), responsible conduct of research (RCR), and research misconduct.
• Ensures protocols and approvals for regulatory compliance are kept current throughout the life of the project.

Proposal Development and Submission (Pre-Award)

• OSP provides “best practice” guidance and proposal development support to faculty and staff.
• Provides proposal and budget development for submission.
• Provides guidance and interpretation of the funding opportunity, solicitation, and sponsor requirements.
• Ensures all submissions have institutional approval prior to submission.
• Submits proposals, Letters of Intent, pre-proposals, and white papers on behalf of the College.

Grant Administration (Post-Award)

• Provides a comprehensive review of grant award, contracts, cooperative agreements, and Material Transfer Agreement terms and conditions.
• Works with the Office of General Counsel to negotiate and acceptance of contractual terms and conditions, including subaward agreements.
• OSP serves as the point of contact to the sponsor for all grant administration activities, i.e. budget modifications, change of PI, No-Cost Extensions, prior approvals, etc.
• Ensures that all reporting requirements are completed in a timely manner.
• Initiates all close-out activities in accordance with the grant requirements.

Training and Education

• Provides current information regarding any changes to policies, practices, and regulations.
• Provides training opportunities to the research community regarding proposal and budget development, research compliance, and sponsor policies and regulations.

Customer Service

• Provides faculty and staff with the expertise and support needed during the entire grant lifecycle, beginning with funding opportunities through grant closeout.
• OSP collaborates with faculty, staff, departments, the provost’s office, development, fiscal affairs, offices of the executive vice president, and the general counsel.

Research at Merrimack Magazine

Read Insights and Innovations: Summer/Fall 2021

Additional Resources

• Mass Humanities Newsletter – December 2019
• NSF Dear Colleagues Letter, 13 December 2019; PAPPG for 2020 and use of SciENcv for Biosketch and Current & Pending Support sections
• NIH Notice , 10 July 2019; Use of  ORCID iDs for grant applications and publications.

Please visit Merrimack’s COVID-19 updates for more info about campus policies.

Contact the Office of Sponsored Programs at research@merrimack.edu.