Step 2: Plan & Refine Project

A strong proposal rests on a well-planned project. Before you begin drafting, it helps to settle how you will carry out the work, manage your data, and access the people, equipment, and resources you will need. Thinking these issues through early makes the proposal easier to write, strengthens your methodology, and prevents surprises once the award arrives. The Research Team () in the Office of the Provost, together with partners across campus, can help you turn a funded idea into a workable plan. Steps in this stage:

Review the application requirements carefully

Not sure what a specific opportunity requires? Expand this section for a rundown of forms, deadlines, registrations, and other requirements to check before you begin.

• Every grant opportunity can be distinct, so before you start, carefully read the full funding opportunity announcement and any companion agency guide (for example, the NSF PAPPG or the NIH application guide).
• Build a requirements checklist. List every required form and document, the page and formatting limits, and the accepted file types. Missing or non-compliant components are a common reason proposals are returned without review. Share with your GCM who will help you with the budget and with some parts of the budget justification.
• Identify the ancillary documents early. Many programs require biosketches, current & pending (other) support, a data management and sharing plan, a mentoring plan, facilities descriptions, and letters of support — all of which take time to gather. (See Develop Proposal for each.)
• Confirm eligibility and fit. Make sure the program matches your disciplinary focus and project scope, and that you’re eligible to serve as PI (see Who can be a PI?).
• Note limits and obligations. Check limited-submission limits, cost-share expectations, and internal deadlines.
• Confirm the budget and project period fit your goals. A request that’s far too large or too small for the work weakens the proposal — either over-ambitious or too limited in scope to be credible.
• Check required registrations and prerequisites now. Federal proposals often need an eRA Commons ID (NIH), and an ORCID and SciENcv profile for biosketches and current & pending support — and most agencies (NSF, NIH, DOD, DOE, USDA and soon NASA) require research security training for senior/key personnel before they can be listed on an application (see Route & Submit). These can take days to set up, so complete them well before the submission deadline.
  • If you are new to WFU and have an eRA Commons ID, please contact ORSP Central so they can affiliate your ID.
  • Remind all your collaborators to check their eRA Commons profile and update as needed.
• Confirm how and where it’s submitted — Cayuse 424 (for Grants.gov), a sponsor portal such as Research.gov or eRA/ASSIST, or a foundation system — so the mechanics hold no surprises.
• Discuss workload impacts with your department chair early
  • Especially if you intend to budget for a course release, which has to be approved and is not guaranteed even with funding

Deadlines and timelines

Ensure you’re building in enough time before the sponsor deadline. Expand this section for the internal timeline requirements and when to loop in your GCM.

• Note the deadline’s exact date, time, and time zone, and whether it’s a “submit by” or “received by” deadline.
• Make sure there’s enough time to develop a rigorous, competitive submission — and that it’s feasible alongside your other professional and personal commitments, with adequate time for your GCM and ORSP staff to do their parts.
• Build in the internal deadline: ORSP’s Reynolda Campus policy requires the budget finalized and the proposal routed in Cayuse SP for review and approval five (5) business days before the sponsor deadline. All other materials must be final two (2) business days prior to the submission deadline.
• Tell your GCM as soon as you’re seriously considering an opportunity — early notice gives them time to help shape the budget and the submission.

Shape your methodology

Working through your research design, or planning to involve human subjects, animals, hazardous materials, or international collaborators? Expand this section for what to define now and what compliance steps to plan for early.

• Define your research questions, design, and approach in enough detail to build a realistic scope and budget. The budget is driven by the experimental design, and vice versa, so both components are best designed in parallel to match the ideal scope of work for the application guidelines.
• If your project involves human participants, animals, biological or hazardous materials, or international collaborators, identify those elements now — they carry compliance steps that take time and should be planned alongside the science.

Build your data strategy

Need to plan how you’ll manage, analyze, or store your data? Expand this section for tools and support to help you meet sponsor requirements and budget accordingly.

• Most sponsors expect a clear plan for how you will collect, store, share, and preserve your data.
• Data management plan. Many funders require a data management and sharing plan as part of the proposal. WFU faculty are encouraged to use the DMPTool, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Library offers research data management support.
• Analysis plan. Decide how you will analyze your data and what tools or expertise you will need; make sure this is added to your proposal and budget if relevant.
  • Check for available software through the Information Systems.
  • Wake Forest’s High Performance Computing (HPC) facility, the DEAC Cluster, offers several commonly used software applications and scripting languages used for analysis; furthermore, their team has the ability to install and optimize new software packages, as well as host software licenses upon request. In addition to large, parallezed workloads, the DEAC Cluster can also support traditional, GUI based, interactive software as well. Consider whether your workflow should utilize these resources, and contact if you have questions.
• Compute and storage. Estimate computing and storage needs early
  • Information Systems maintains the DEAC Cluster as a centralized, enterprise service available at no additional cost to Reynolda Campus faculty, students, and staff. It offers highly reliable compute resources and baseline storage for research. Additional storage and high priority access can be acquired by contributing funds based on your project’s needs. Contact if you have questions.
• Controlled unclassified information (CUI)
  • The DEAC Cluster was not designed to support CUI data.

Find equipment, cores, and services

Relying on shared instruments or core facilities? Expand this section to confirm access and rates before you finalize your budget.

• Identify the instruments, core facilities, and service centers your project will rely on, and confirm access and rates before you budget. Building these costs in accurately at the planning stage avoids re-budgeting later.
• Explore shared facilities and equipment here.

Plan for specialized or regulated activities

Does your project involve international work, controlled materials, community partners, or data from apps and wearables? Expand this section to see what extra reviews or agreements to plan for early.

• Some projects need extra lead time. If your work involves international activities or collaborations, controlled materials or technology, community partners, or data drawn from apps, websites, or wearable devices, flag these early so the right reviews and agreements can be arranged in parallel with proposal development.
• Flag any materials or data you’ll exchange. If your project involves sending or receiving research materials (cell lines, reagents, specimens) or datasets — including data shared with another institution or company — those transfers need a written agreement that the University, not you, signs. They take time to negotiate, so identify them while you plan. Let know early in the process so they can assist.

Obtain and review sample successful proposals

Want to see how a funded proposal is structured before you start writing? Expand this section for ways to find examples, and important guidelines on using them appropriately.

• Few things sharpen a proposal faster than seeing a funded one for the same sponsor and mechanism, including how the aims are framed, how much detail reviewers expect, and how the budget and supporting documents fit together.
• When you review an example, study the structure as much as the science: how the specific aims are stated, the scope supported by the budget, how the narrative maps to the sponsor’s review criteria, and which ancillary documents are included. Watch for mechanism differences — an NIH R01 reads very differently from an R21, F, or K award, and an NSF CAREER differs from a standard grant.
• One important caution: treat every shared proposal as confidential and as a model, not a template. Use it to understand structure and expectations — never reuse another investigator’s text. Adapting someone else’s writing as your own is a research-integrity violation.
• Several ways to find examples:
  • Ask your department chair or Associate Dean for Research for names of faculty who’ve received a similar award, and reach out to that PI.
  • Browse recent WFU awards in the ORSP annual report and contact the PI to ask whether they’ll share their proposal.
  • Use ORSP’s confidential WFU-only library: some faculty have agreed to let other Wake Forest faculty view a successful proposal they submitted. It is shared in confidence. To request access, contact ORSP for the password.
  • Search the sponsor’s database of funded awards. NIH RePORTER and NSF Award Search let you find funded projects by topic, read their abstracts, and identify PIs to contact; many other sponsors publish lists of recent awardees.
  • Look for published sample applications. Some NIH institutes — NIAID is the best-known — post complete funded applications together with their summary statements, which let you see the actual reviewer feedback.
  • Talk to the program officer for federal agencies. They can describe the kinds of projects the program funds, share examples, and tell you whether your idea is a good fit. It’s one of the most useful and most underused steps in proposal development.
  • Ask your Z. Smith Reynolds Library liaison, who can help you search funded-award databases and a sponsor’s portfolio.

Collect feasibility and pilot data

Need to strengthen your proposal with feasibility or pilot data? Expand this section for guidance on what reviewers look for, internal funding to help generate it, and compliance steps to plan for early.

• Unless the opportunity is specifically for pilot or seed funding, grant applications often expect feasibility and pilot data. Reviewers use it to judge whether the project is realistic and likely to succeed.
• Feasibility data shows that your lab can carry out the work, ideally using data you’ve generated with the same methods you propose. It can also demonstrate access to the equipment, cores, populations, or sites the project requires. If you can’t show the methods yourself, adding a collaborator with that expertise serves the same purpose.
• Pilot data shows that your hypothesis is plausible and your premise is sound. Strong preliminary data is often decisive for larger awards — for NIH in particular, where reviewers weigh the scientific premise and the rigor of prior research.
• WFU offers internal seed funding designed expressly to produce the preliminary data that makes an external proposal competitive — most notably the single-investigator ORSP Pilot Research Grant (PRG) program, plus collaborative and center-based pilot mechanisms when available, and bridge funding when a renewal is declined. Check the research funding page for current programs, amounts, and deadlines. 
• Faculty in the College have additional resources for internal funding for faculty development found here.
• Meet compliance requirements before you collect any data. If your pilot work involves human participants, animals, biological or hazardous materials, or international collaborators, the relevant approvals (IRB, IACUC, biosafety, or compliance) and required training must be in place before you begin — data collected without them generally can’t be used to support an application. Build approval time into your plan.
• Start early. Good preliminary data takes longer to generate than most timelines assume. Work backward from your target deadline so the data is collected, analyzed, and figures completed well before you sit down to write.