For Researchers

WCER provides education researchers across the UW–Madison campus with comprehensive support throughout the grant lifecycle, including regulatory, business, communications, and technical needs.

Submitting a Grant Proposal Through WCER

Grants administered through WCER must align with the center’s mission to improve educational outcomes for diverse student populations, positively impact education practice, and foster collaborations among academic disciplines and practitioners.

Grants not aligned with WCER’s mission will be supported through the School of Education Business Office in coordination with department administrative staff and the relevant Associate Deans. This approach only pertains to grants, not fee-for-service.

WCER “mission-aligned” grants are defined as grant activities that include: education research, development, and/or evaluation AND occur in PreK-higher education school settings or involve the teaching and learning of school-based professionals, stakeholders, or school-aged people (e.g., school nurses, teachers, administrators, parents of school children, children) as primary participants.

Examples of “non-mission-aligned grants” included travel grants, salary replacement fellowships, conference grants, and health-related grants without a school population focus.

Requests to submit are approved by Courtney Bell, WCER Director, or Hanna Blazel, WCER COO, after submission through the WCER Grants & Contracts Submission Request form. The grants team and editors will collaborate with you on your submission. Funded grants and contracts submitted by WCER will be housed in WCER, where we work closely with the School of Education and central campus RSP on the technical aspects of grants. RSP approves all extramural submissions.

Please note: when submitting requests, there is no option to save and return. We recommend organizing your notes in a separate file before entering the data into the form.

To help you plan, the form will require you to enter the following information:

Grant

• Submission deadline
• Name of the competition
• Designate if this is a resubmission
• Grant sponsor/funding source
• Indicate if WCER is the prime submitting institution or if this is a subcontract
• Working title
• A brief description of the project and its relevance to WCER’s mission
• Principal Investigator (PI)
• Co-PI(s), if any
• Link to the Request for Proposal (RFP)
• Estimated length of project and start date
• Estimated budget

Fee-For-Service

• Sponsor/funding source
• Completion deadline
• Indicate if this is a renewal
• Deadlines
• Working title
• Project description & relevance to WCER’s mission
• PI
• Co-PI(s), if any
• Link to the Request for Proposal (RFP)
• Estimated length of project and start date
• Estimated budget

Grant Submission Timeline

Successfully funded proposals require planning at least six weeks before the funder’s deadline. Starting earlier has many benefits to build your competitive advantage. The timeline should be expanded for larger and more complex proposals.

6 weeks before the funding deadline or earlier …

Submit your WCER Grants & Contracts Submission Request form, receive approval and confirm subaward contacts.

5 weeks or earlier …

Discuss technology and equipment needs with the Research IT team.

4 weeks or earlier …

Work with the Research Administration team to draft a budget.

2 weeks or earlier …

Finalize your planned budget with the Research Administration team.

1 week or earlier …

Provide final personnel documents to the Research Administration team.

5 business days or earlier …

All finalized documents are due to the Research Administration team.

4 business days or earlier …

Administrative review occurs; PI and team review, edit and approved the compiled proposal.

3 business days or earlier …

All documents are routed to the SoE Dean’s Office and RSP.

PI Grant Proposal Agreement

When WCER agrees to assist with your proposal, we agree to:

• Provide a checklist of proposal requirements – Research Administrator (RA)
• Create key milestone deadlines for proposal components such as budget, editing, final documents, and submission – Editors (Ed), RA
• Assist with budget and document creation; provide examples and templates of materials when available – RA, Ed
• Coordinate with subawardee institutions to collect needed documents – RA
• Edit and provide comments on your narrative and other text-heavy portions of your proposal – Ed
• Upload documents and budgets to the sponsor portal and campus system – RA
• Review the submission and assist with error corrections – Ed, RA
• Route the proposal to School of Education and RSP for submission – RA
• Verify submission to funder – RA

When you request to route your proposal through WCER, you agree to:

• Read the current, accurate call for proposals for your submission
• Review the checklist provided to you by WCER to ensure you address proposal requirements
• Deliver all materials by agreed-upon deadlines
• Supply correct versions of documents and clearly mark final versions
• Give editors documents at required page limits
• Provide reviewer comments to editors when available
• Review and accept editorial changes
• Notify WCER of substantive changes such as updated documents, title changes, and budget updates as soon as possible but no later than a week before final submission
• Communicate your needs and plans – if you will not be able to meet a deadline or will not be submitting, let Research Admin and Editor teams know as soon as possible
• Review compiled submission for complete and correct versions of documents
• Send administrative approval of final submission to research administrator
• Certify records and complete PI portions of submissions

Given sufficient time, the Editing team can address this kind of error:

• Identify missing documents
• Identify missing narrative components/sections
• Redundant and confusing language
• Language/voice consistency
• Spelling and grammar
• Formatting issues
• The Research Administrator team can address this kind of error:
• Identify missing documents
• Budget issues
• Number mismatch, especially in the budget justification
• Errors that prevent submission

Only you and your team can address the following:

• Issues in the science
• Missing references and citation errors
• Missing letters of support
• Incorrect tables
• Incorrect information on personnel documents
• Correct versions of documents

Please also refer to the RSP guidance on roles and responsibilities at https://rsp.wisc.edu/policies/staffroles.cfm.