Text Box: Electronic Research Administration There are many sponsors that accept only on-line applications and this will continue to be the trend as more federal agencies develop on-line submission procedures. It is important that the Principal Investigator contacts his/her Project Administrator as early as possible to determine if the University of Denver is signed up as an organization on the sponsor’s submittal website. The most commonly used electronic submittal sites are: Grants.gov: www.grants.gov NSF Fastlane: https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/jsp/homepage/proposals.jsp NASA—NSPIRES: https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/index.do Department of Education—eGrants: http://e-grants.ed.gov/egWelcome.asp Text Box: Budget Preparation The budget is one of the most important parts of an application. The typical budget has two forms of costs — Direct and Indirect. Text Box: Direct Costs These are costs that can be directly associated and charged to one specific project. The following costs are typically considered direct costs: Salary - Any DU employee working on a project that will be charged to the grant must be included in the salary line component. Most sponsors require that a percentage of effort or FTE is identified. Leave Reserve - The Principal Investigator must calculate leave reserve on any non-faculty DU employee who receives vacation or sick benefits and that will be charged to a grant. Leave reserve is not listed as a separate line item, but is included in the salary amount. This is done by taking the salary amount and increasing it by 15%. Fringe Benefits - The University of Denver has three negotiated fringe benefit rates for individuals being charged to a grant depending on type of employee. The rates for FY08 are: Faculty = 24.3% Non-benefited = 7.4% Students = 1.8% Fringe benefits are figured on the salary amount plus any leave reserve for each individual working on a grant. Text Box: 6