Posted September 2, 2026 by Tiffany Lee
As compliance requirements from federal agencies and sponsors continue to expand, the Office of Sponsored Programs is encouraging researchers to provide a substantially complete proposal package with adequate lead time to ensure meaningful review. This time frame ensures OSP can identify compliance, administrative and submission issues that may require resolution before the proposal can be submitted.
Information regarding proposal readiness and review expectations is available in the OSP Proposal Review Timeline.
Federal agencies and sponsors have significantly expanded proposal stage compliance requirements in recent years. While proposal review has always included budget and administrative review, institutions are now required to verify an increasing number of compliance-related certifications, disclosures and requirements before a proposal can be submitted.
Research security requirements, expanded foreign disclosure requirements, conflict of interest disclosures, export control considerations and sponsor-specific assurances have increased the amount of review and coordination required during proposal preparation. In many cases, compliance requirements that were once addressed after an award was issued must now be reviewed and certified at the proposal stage.
These requirements often involve coordination among investigators, departments, Sponsored Programs, compliance offices and subrecipient institutions — making sufficient lead time increasingly important. A substantially complete proposal package, not simply an initiated routing record or individual proposal components submitted over time, is key to a complete review and helps all parties navigate an increasingly complex compliance environment.
