Many federal agencies and foundations offer funding opportunities that limit the number of applications that can be submitted per institution. To facilitate proposals that are as competitive as possible for these limited submission opportunities and to ensure fairness in the selection process, the Office of Research Development develops internal proposal competitions to review and select proposals to be submitted to the sponsor.
Faculty and staff who intend to apply to limited submission opportunities should notify the Office of Research Development via email to ord@niu.edu as soon as possible.
Wherever possible, an internal competition will be held to select proposals for submission to the sponsor. When circumstances do not allow for a full competition, proposals may be selected on a first come, first submit or another basis at the discretion of the interim associate vice president for research and innovation partnerships and the director of research development.
Active internal competitions can be accessed via the NIU InfoReady internal competition portal.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued the Funding for Accelerated Inclusive Research (FAIR) 2024 funding opportunity announcement (FOA). This funding opportunity targets emerging research institutions and minority-serving institutions. As such, this represents an excellent opportunity for NIU, and the Office of Research Development (ORD) encourages proposals for this competition.
Pre-applications are required and must be submitted to the Department of Energy by April 23, 2024.
PIs who intend to submit a pre-proposal in response to the FAIR solicitation must notify the Office of Research Development via InfoReady as soon as possible and no later than April 19, 2024. PIs must include the following information:
ORD, in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research, will select the pre-applications to move forward to DOE. Selection will be based primarily on a first-notify, first-approved basis. Internal submissions will be evaluated for completeness; lack of required information will result in an inability to submit the internal notice, return to the submitter or rejection.
DOE requires authorized institutional approval of pre-proposals. Only pre-applications that have been approved for submission via the selection process outlined here will receive ORD approval in PAMS. Details regarding the AOR approval process will be shared closer to the DOE pre-application deadline.
We strongly encourage potential applicants to review the funding opportunity announcement on the DOE FAIR program webpage.
Please email ord@niu.edu with questions about this selection process.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued the Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) 2024 funding opportunity announcement (FOA). This funding opportunity supports traineeships for students and postdoctoral researchers from emerging research institutions (ERIs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) in partnership with a DOE-affiliated institution (including but not limited to national laboratories). As such, this represents an excellent opportunity for NIU, and the Office of Research Development (ORD) encourages proposals for this competition.
Pre-applications are required and must be submitted to the Department of Energy by April 30, 2024.
PIs who intend to submit a pre-proposal in response to the FAIR solicitation must notify the Office of Research Development via InfoReady as soon as possible and no later than April 24, 2024. PIs must include the following information:
ORD, in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research, will select the pre-proposals to move forward to DOE. Selection will be based primarily on a first-notify, first-approved basis. Internal submissions will be evaluated for completeness; lack of required information will result in an inability to submit the internal notice, return to the submitter, or rejection.
DOE requires authorized institutional approval of pre-proposals in the DOE PAMS submission portal. Only pre-proposals that have been approved for submission via the selection process outlined here will receive ORD approval in PAMS. Details regarding the AOR approval process will be shared closer to the DOE pre-application deadline.
We strongly encourage potential applicants to review the funding opportunity announcement, and the additional information available on the DOE RENEW program webpage.
Please email ord@niu.edu with questions about this selection process.
The Office of Research Development welcomes the submission of internal proposals for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipends Program. The proposals selected from this internal competition will be the only ones to be nominated upon NEH request. Proposals that do not adhere to the requirements will not be considered in the internal competition.
The NEH Summer Stipends Program intends to drive new research and publication of the same in the humanities via small awards to individual scholars. Summer Stipend awards provide two consecutive months of summer funding to support continuous full-time work on a humanities project. Awards may support salary, travel, and other costs related to the proposed research. Prospective applicants are strongly advised to review the NEH Summer Stipends program page and all related documents.
NEH will only accept two proposals for review that are nominated by NIU. Following the NEH submission deadline, NEH will contact NIU to request the nomination of two Summer Stipend proposals. Only these two nominated proposals will be reviewed by NEH. NEH will deem ineligible and will not review any proposals that are not nominated by NIU. The process described here will be used to select up to two proposals for nomination to NEH.
Any NIU faculty member planning to submit a proposal in response to the NEH Summer Stipends solicitation must submit an internal proposal. Proposals submitted to NEH that have not been selected via this competition will not be nominated to NEH. No exceptions.
Note: Faculty whose proposals are approved for submission via this internal competition must submit their proposals directly in grants.gov, as required by NEH for this program.
| Internal Proposal Deadline | Date to be announced |
| Announce Selected Proposals | Date to be announced |
| Proposals due to NEH | Date to be announced |
| Nomination confirmations due to NEH | Date to be announced |
| Expected NEH notification date | Date to be announced |
| Project start date | May 1, 2025 – September 1, 2026 |
The 2023 internal competition has ended and 2023 NEH deadline has passed. Dates and internal proposal requirements for the 2024 Summer Stipend deadline will be announced in calendar year 2024 following the NEH release of 2024 guidelines (anticipated June 2024). Prospective applicants may use the below competition guidelines to begin preparing an internal proposal for the 2024 competition.
Faculty who plan to submit a proposal to the Summer Stipends program must prepare and submit an internal proposal. It is in internal applicants' best interest to carefully review the Summer Stipends NOFO and additional supporting content available via the NEH Summer Stipends program website.
Faculty must prepare and submit the following documents in accordance with the NOFO requirements on the pages noted by each item:
Applicants do not need to submit the grants.gov application forms with their internal proposals.
Internal proposals that are:
The interim associate vice president for research and innovation partnerships or their designee will select up to two proposals to be nominated to NEH. All internal applicants will be notified whether their proposal was selected for nomination. Successful internal applicants must then finalize and submit their proposals to NEH via the grants.gov portal.
Internal proposals will be accepted via the NIU InfoReady internal competition software portal. The competition will be launched in the portal in advance of the 2024 deadline.
Complete information on the Summer Stipends program, including the NOFO and sample proposal narratives, is available on the program page. We strongly urge faculty who are considering a proposal to this program to review the complete guidelines and access the webinars and other tools available at the NEH website prior to drafting their internal proposals.
Please submit questions about the internal proposal competition to ord@niu.edu, and enter “NEH Summer Stipends Internal Competition Question” in the subject line.
The Office of Research Development welcomes the submission of internal proposals for the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) competition. The proposals selected from this internal competition will be the only ones to be fully developed and submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF). Proposals that do not adhere to the requirements will not be considered in the internal competition.
The NSF MRI program supports the acquisition or development of research instruments to advance science and engineering. The program intends to fund multi-user instruments for research and research training. NSF will consider requests for acquisition of a commercially available instrument via direct purchase from a vendor, or requests for personnel and equipment costs required to develop an instrument with new capabilities. Complete details are available on the MRI program page. We strongly encourage you to read the full program solicitation before preparing your internal proposal. Please submit any questions to the Office of Research Development at ord@niu.edu and enter "MRI Internal Competition Question" in the subject line.
NIU may submit only four proposals per competition as a lead applicant, a collaborative applicant or a significantly funded subawardee:
Please note the following regarding the submission limit:
If you're planning a subaward proposal for this MR competition, contact the Office of Research Development at ord@niu.edu to discuss whether the subaward proposal will count against NIU's submission limit.
The 2023 competition dates have passed. Anticipated dates for 2024 are below.
Proposals must include two documents: a project description and cost/budget information. If you're submitting a proposal that was previously submitted as an MRI proposal to the NSF and received review comments, you should also include resubmission information. All documents should be single-spaced with no smaller than 1" margins and no smaller than 11-point font.
Proposals will be submitted via the NIU InfoReady internal competition portal. The competition will be launched in the portal in advance of the 2024 deadline. Individuals planning to submit to the 2024 NSF MRI deadline can use the information below to start developing their internal proposals.
Proposals that do not adhere to the guidelines and/or are not received by the internal proposal deadline will not be considered in the internal competition. No exceptions.
A brief project description (limited to five pages) is required for all internal proposals. It should include:
Your document should also describe the following:
Provide a draft budget and preliminary budget justification/description of the project's resource requirements (limited to two pages). Include vendor quotes and/or describe the status of securing vendor quotes to acquire the instrument (for acquisition proposals) or required components (for development proposals). Actual vendor quote documents may be provided outside of the two-page limit. Note that cost-sharing is prohibited in MRI proposals. Do not include any cost sharing in your budget information.
If the proposal will be a resubmission, please include a document describing the results of prior review and how the review comments will be addressed (limited to one page). You may also attach the actual review comments as an appendix in addition to the one-page limit.