Support for Large, Collaborative Federal Proposals

Proposal Development

proposal development process


Support and questions 

For questions or requests for support, please email Mary Sym.

The Office of the Dean for Research offers strategic proposal development support for complex, multi-investigator grant proposals submitted to federal funding agencies. The overarching goal is to make these proposals as competitive as possible and lower the barrier for tackling them. To be most impactful, this type of support should be engaged early on, from the earliest conceptual stages of formulating ideas and identifying the research team, through the final stages of editing and preparing the proposal for submission. Support is available only to proposals where Princeton University serves the lead institution and the principal investigator has a full-time faculty appointment at the University. 

Proposal development services

  • Assistance with identifying large-scale, collaborative funding opportunities at federal funding agencies.
  • Identifying and building interdisciplinary, collaborative teams at Princeton.
  • Project-management support for the proposal process such as organizing meetings, creating proposal-development timelines, milestones, action plans, etc.
  • Strategic development and editing of research proposals (e.g., develop clear and persuasive narratives that are responsive to the funding announcement, create visually effective and compelling figures, ensure compliance to agency requirements).  
  • Writing and editing non-technical components of proposals (e.g., management plans, broader impacts, institutional resources and facilities, training, community outreach activities, diversity plans).
  • Coordinating pre-submission peer reviews of proposal drafts.