
Central Pre-Award
Central Pre-Award is a function overseen by Research Administration & Development and is the only unit authorized by Tufts to sign proposals for sponsored projects and accept sponsored awards.
- Responsible for pre-award and non-fiscal post-award administration of sponsored awards
- Proposal review, approval and submission
- Award negotiation and the Point of Contact with funding agencies
- Award acceptance. Authorized representative/Signing Official that can legally bind Tufts
- Subrecipient risk assessment, issuing subawards and amendments
- Just-in-Time (JIT), no cost extensions, prior approvals
- Facilitating compliance with federal, state, and agency regulations and internal policies that surround sponsored funding.
Processing Times
- Proposal Review
- 48 hours (or 2 business days)
- Processing new awards that do not require negotiation
- 48 hours (or 2 business days)
- Email inquiries
- 24 hours (next business day)
- Updates on work that is in process
- usually once a week
- Contract reviews - Vanilla
- 72 hours (or 3 business days)
- Contract/incoming subcontract reviews – Complex (requiring multiple sign off i.e. TTIC/General Counsel, or federal, or exceptions)
- Movement within 5 business days (assumption multiple moves required)
- PI should get updates once a week
- Incoming subcontract contracts - Vanilla
- 72 hours (or 3 business days)
- Outgoing subcontracts - Vanilla
- 5 business days to develop
- Inquiries to sub once a week if not returned
- Outgoing subcontracts - Complex
- 2 weeks to develop
- Inquiries to sub once every 2 weeks
- NIH RPPRs:
- 2 business days to review and submit to NIH
Pre-Award Research Administration strives to meet the posted turnaround times. During periods of high volume, delays of up to a week from posted times may occur. Please contact your Pre-Award representative with questions about a specific project.