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

• For Research.gov and grants.gov, Friday, October 20, 2023 (5 p.m., submitter’s local time) is the last day to upload the NSF fillable PDF format for the biographical sketch and current and pending (other) support.
  • The mandate to use SciENcv only for preparation of the biographical sketch and current and pending (other) support will go into effect for new proposals submitted or due on or after October 23, 2023.
• SciENcv Training Resources
  • NSF Biographical Sketch video tutorial
  • NSF Current & Pending (Other) Support video tutorial
  • SciENcv help guide with NSF-specific section (includes screenshots and step-by-step instructions)
  • Using SciENcv Frequently Asked Questions
  • SciENcv demo recording from June 2023 NSF Grants Conference (demo starts at the 23:49 minute marker)
• 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.