Each year, Boise State University (“University”) submits many sponsored project proposals to Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (“BEA”), which is the management and operating contractor of the Idaho National Laboratory (“INL”). In addition, the University collaborates with BEA and universities affiliated with the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (“CAES”) on numerous projects each year. These critical activities support faculty research, student research experiences and other long-term University objectives.
CURRENT PRACTICE:
PIs have been sending draft proposal documents directly to BEA counterparts. It is important that PIs do not send the detailed budget, budget narrative and/or final SOW directly to BEA. This results in:
- Confusion among BEA’s and the University’s programmatic and contracting personnel as to which document(s) represent the University’s authorized proposal;
- Awards issued to the University that reflect inaccurate proposal documents (e.g., under/over-estimated budgets); and
- Delays in BEA issuing awards and the University’s award acceptance process.
NEW PROCEDURE:
To enable efficient interaction between the University and BEA, the Office of Sponsored Programs (“OSP”) is implementing the following procedures for all proposal submissions to BEA:
1. Scopes of Work:
OSP understands that multiple draft Statement of Work (“SOW”) revisions may be emailed/discussed by University and BEA Principal Investigators (“PIs”) and Co-Principal Investigators (“Co-PIs”) before the formal proposal submission.
- PIs must use a “DRAFT” watermark to clearly identify the SOWs as “in process” and not final proposals.
- When the final SOW has been developed, the University PI must remove the “DRAFT” watermark from the document and email it to OSP Pre-Award (preaward@boisestate.edu) for submission to BEA.
2. Budget:
- To facilitate discussions about the SOWs, OSP Pre-Award can provide, upon request, an estimated total dollar amount for the budget. The detailed budget and budget justification will only be provided to BEA as part of the formal and final proposal submission, in keeping with standard practices.
- The OSP Pre-Award Research Administrator assigned to assist the PI will create a detailed budget with input from the PI.
3. Proposal Submission:
- The OSP Pre-Award Research Administrator will route the draft or final scope of work with the detailed budget for internal university approvals using the Frevvo routing process. Once all internal approvals have been received, the OSP Pre-Award Research Administrator will email the final SOW, budget, and budget justification and any additional required documents to BEA with a signed cover letter indicating that the complete proposal has been approved by the appropriate University officials.
If you have any questions or concerns about these changes to more closely align the BEA proposal submission process with the University’s standard proposal submission practices, please email OSP Pre-Award at preaward@boisestate.edu. Thank you.