Semiconductor Research Corporation ®

Funding Opportunities

A Guide to
Online Proposal
Submission
© Semiconductor Research Corporation • P.O. Box 12053, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2053 • 919.941.9400
Table of Contents
A Summary of the Steps..................................................................................................... 4
1. Receive a Request for Proposal ................................................................................. 6
2. Sign In ........................................................................................................................ 7
3. Download the resource package................................................................................ 8
4. Enter summary information ...................................................................................... 9
5. Prepare proposal ...................................................................................................... 12
6. Generate and print cover page................................................................................. 13
7. Gather signatures..................................................................................................... 15
8. Generate PDF file .................................................................................................... 16
9. Upload proposal ....................................................................................................... 17
10. Submit proposal..................................................................................................... 19

REVISED ON APRIL 6, 2006

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Overview
Your SRC research proposal—the bridge to a research contract

R
esearch proposals are intended to provide sufficient information to permit an evaluation
of the proposed research—its technical merits, its innovative approach, and its relevance
to the SRC research agenda.

All SRC research proposals are by invitation only; a Request for Proposal must be received from
the SRC. SRC does not accept unsolicited proposals.

Beginning in 2006, all SRC research proposals must be submitted online using the SRC Research
Proposal Submission process located at http://www.src.org/act/proposalsubmission.asp.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) fits into one of two funding categories. The larger category is
comprised of proposals resulting from successful white papers submitted in response to a
solicitation. Alternatively, proposals are requested based on a member company’s interest in
funding a project under the Research Customization Program (RCP).

Most SRC research proposals—those associated with a solicitation— follow a published timeline,
and are evaluated by a review committee comprised of technically knowledgeable member
company advisors working with SRC technical staff.

An RCP proposal has its own unique timeline, as determined by the member company who
wants to fund the project. Similarly, the funding member company makes the final determination
whether to fund a proposal submitted under the Research Customization Program.

Selected research proposals are awarded research contracts. If a decision is made not to fund your
proposal, you will be notified promptly.

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Submission Process
A step-by-step review of the online proposal submission process

A Summary of the Steps

There are ten steps involved in submitting a proposal. The first nine steps are preparatory; SRC
does not officially receive the proposal until the final step has been taken. Here are the steps are in
summary form.

1. Receive a Request for Proposal by e-mail from SRC.

2. Sign In.

3. Download the resource package.

4. Enter summary information about the proposal (online).

5. Prepare the proposal (offline).

6. Generate and print the proposal cover page

7. Gather signatures on the cover page.

8. Generate a single PDF file of proposal documents and cover page.

9. Upload the proposal document.

10. Submit the proposal.

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Here are some important points to remember about the proposal process.

You will need the unique proposal identifier included in the RFP e-mail in order to access the
online proposal process for your proposal.

ƒ The proposal submission process is interruptible. You may perform the process in
stages separated by hours or days. Each time you return, identify the proposal by its
unique proposal identifier.

ƒ The ten steps described in this document represent a reasonable proposal submission
workflow. However, this workflow is somewhat flexible. For instance, you may
choose to Enter Information before you Download Templates.

ƒ Between the proposal submission open date and the due date, all steps in the process
are repeatable. This makes it possible to move backward and forward in the process,
correcting mistakes or making changes as needed.

ƒ You must upload a new copy of the full proposal document if any detail has changed,
and you may do this as often as needed—until the due date has passed, of course.
Each time the proposal document is uploaded, it overwrites the previously uploaded
copy of the document (on the server, the document is always named by its unique
proposal identifier—for example, P99999.pdf).

ƒ The proposal is submitted to SRC—and SRC is officially notified—only when you

click the button that says Submit Proposal.

ƒ You must resubmit your proposal (that is, by clicking the Submit Proposal button)
whenever you update proposal information or upload the proposal document.

ƒ Each time you enter new proposal information, and each time that you upload a new
proposal document, e-mail confirmations are sent to the PI as well as to the person
performing the data entry or document upload. This is primarily a security measure.
We hope the barrage of e-mail does not seem superfluous.

ƒ Additional e-mail notifications are sent to SRC and to the designated university
administrator when you Submit Proposal. Of course, the PI and the submitter are
notified as well.

Now, let’s walk through the ten proposal submission steps in more detail.

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1. Receive a Request for Proposal
You cannot send SRC a proposal without receiving a Request for Proposal. There are two
mechanisms for causing SRC to send you a Request for Proposal.

Case 1: Submit a quality white paper against a published solicitation. When your white paper is
approved by the selection committee, you will receive a Request for Proposal. The RFP e-mail is
sent by SRC to the prospective principal investigator (the person cited as the principal author in
the white paper).

The RFP will be e-mailed to you on the published Proposal Request Date (see Note just below).
The RFP e-mail will include the unique proposal identifier as well as other critical information,
including possible adjustments to your budget and scope of work (from that indicated by the
white paper) as recommended by the white paper selection committee.

Note: A solicitation timeline is included in the relevant Call for Research document (you can find
this document listed under the Open Calls heading on the Funding Opportunities page at
http://www.src.org/fr/current_calls.asp).

Case 2: Convince an SRC member company to fund your research effort through the Research
Customization Program. If you start down this path, please inform SRC as early as possible.
When confirmed by the member company, SRC will generate and e-mail an RCP Request for
Proposal.

Occasionally, rejected white papers are picked up by a particular member company and funded
under the RCP program.

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2. Sign in
The RFP will provide a link to the online proposal submission launch page; it is located at
http://www.src.org/act/proposalsubmission.asp. Point your favorite browser to this page to get
started.

The online proposal submission process does not require you to have a user account or to log in
to the SRC Web site, but you do have to identify the unique proposal identifier as well as the
Principal Investigator’s e-mail address. This information is provided in the RFP e-mail that is
sent to the prospective Principal Investigator.

The proposal submission application can be used by anyone with the two required pieces of
information just mentioned. For example, the PI may choose to forward the RFP with its
credentials to a graduate student, an administrative assistant, or an authorized university official.
Contributors other than the PI are asked to identify themselves and to provide an e-mail address
for notification purposes.

The submission process is designed to allow interruptions. In practice, the proposal submission
usually involves multiple online sessions. Each time you return to SRC Research Proposal
Submission, you will be asked to repeat the sign-in step.

Occasionally you may experience a session time-out. This is a security measure designed to
prevent unauthorized access to your proposal information. It occurs after an excessively long
period of idle keyboard time such as a lunch break or a long telephone conversation. You will be
asked to reenter the proposal ID and the PI’s e-mail address.

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3. Download the resource package
All of the proposal forms and template documents are included in a single ZIP file that you can
download. Simply click on the Download Templates tab, and follow the instructions. Be sure to
get an up-to-date version of this package rather than relying on older, possibly outdated, forms.

The resource package includes the following documents:

1. Research Summary (ResearchSummary.doc - MS Word template)

2. Finance plan (FinancePlan.xls - Excel workbook with three worksheets)

a. Annual budget summary

b. Alternate sources of funding support (current and pending)

c. Monthly expenditures

3. Research Catalog page (CatalogPage.doc - MS Word template)

In addition, the document you are reading, A Guide to Online Proposal Submissions, is included.

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4. Enter summary information
Click on the Enter Information tab to review and update summary information about your
proposal. For example, you can edit your proposal title, indicate your requested budget amounts
(first year and total) and add contact information.

Some information items are required—these items are indicated by bold entry labels—before
your submission can be considered completed. The IP Explanation field is required only when
Intellectual Property is set to Yes. Required fields are not enforced until the final step of the
submission process. All information provided, even if incomplete, is saved and available upon
your return to complete the form at another time.

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When you click the Add or Edit button (1) for proposal contacts, the form expands to reveal a
contact editor (2) which is shaded in gray. When you have added contact information for a new
contact, click the Update (3) button to hide the contact editor and to store the contact data in the
temporary holding area. You may add more contacts (by repeating steps 1, 2 and 3) and other
information on the form. When you have finished entering all of the known contact, and any
other information, press the Save button to save all information including contact information.

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After Adding or Editing a contact from within the contacts editor, and before you have pressed
the Save button to store the new contact information, you may see one or two warning prompts
in red text to the right of the contacts box.

One of these is a reminder to press the Save button at the bottom of the form, since the Update
operation just puts the contact in a temporary holding area.

The other possible warning is an indicator that your contact information is incomplete. The
contact name with incomplete information is highlighted by a yellow background (you might have
to scroll the entries in the contact box before you can see it). To resolve this, select the highlighted
contact, then click the Edit button and add the required information.

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5. Prepare proposal
Use the following proposal templates from the downloaded resources to prepare your proposal.
Once the proposal parts have been prepared, they must be converted to PDF format and
combined in the following order.

1. Research Summary (ResearchSummary.doc – an MS Word template)

The Research Summary (previously called the Overview of Research), unlike the Research
Catalog page, is not highly structured by SRC. It is intended to be more narrative. This is an
opportunity for you to be creative (but not verbose) in characterizing the value of your proposed
research—its technical merit, innovative approach and relevance to industry—and the strength of
your research team. The Research Plan is typically 3-5 pages in length.

2. Research Catalog page (CatalogPage.doc – an MS Word template)

SRC requires that each individual research task is described in a common structure—for
incorporation into the online SRC Research Catalog if your research is funded. Generally, tasks
should not be smaller than $50K (over a three year period). Many SRC contracts have a single
defined task. Note that there are strict word limits for each section of the Catalog page.

3. Finance plan (FinancePlan.xls – an Excel workbook with three worksheets)

SRC has combined three Excel files into a single Excel workbook with three worksheets. In
some cases you will be duplicating the worksheets for multiple years or multiple participants.

a. Annual budget

Duplicate the budget worksheet so that you have one for each contract year. Each
year’s budget must be signed by the PI and the appropriate university official.

b. Other support

List all other sources of funding support, current and pending, including other
funding support from SRC. Complete a copy of this worksheet for each researcher.

c. Monthly expenditures

This is essentially your burn rate, and assists SRC in planning its cash flow and
monitoring your progress.

One page of the research proposal—the first page—is not included in the proposal template
package. This is the cover page, and it is generated online and printed locally. See the next step.

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6. Generate and print cover page
A signed and scanned cover sheet is to be included as the first page of your uploaded proposal
document (see: Generate PDF file).

The cover page is now generated online and printed locally. It is populated with information
available to SRC and supplied in the online form.

When correct and complete proposal information has been entered, the View Status page should
read Information Status: Proposal information is complete. At this point, you can generate
and print a copy of the cover page.

Click the Generate Cover Page button.

This causes the cover sheet to display in a secondary browser window.

Note that the Proposal Date is the date you generate the cover page and reflects the status of
information entered to that point. If the information has been changed, a new cover page should
be generated and used. The cover page should look something like the sample cover page
included below.

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It is preferable that the cover page be confined to a single printed page if possible, to keep the
signatures on the same page with the information. This should only be a problem when you have
many sets of contact information. Here are some tips on printing your cover sheet:

1. Set margins to one-half-inch or less to fit more on a single page.

2. On the other hand, you may need to add to margins if printing to letterhead.

3. Set your browser’s print settings to suppress headers and footers. If you want to
document the print date, note that the PROPOSAL DATE shown on the cover page is the
date that the cover sheet is generated.

Tip:

You can print the

cover page even
before the information
is complete. When you
do, the missing
information will be
replaced by
highlighted warnings,
for instance [missing
start date]. This text
will be highlighted
with a yellow
background. This is a
nifty way to figure out
which informational
items are missing.
Once you update the
information, you can
regenerate and print
the cover page.

Important Note:

Be sure to generate a
cover page, even if
circumstances prevent
you from gathering
signatures prior to the
submission deadline.

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7. Gather signatures
A cover page must be incorporated into your proposal PDF file (see: Print cover page and
Generate PDF file). The cover page is intended to be signed before inclusion in your proposal
document.

The cover page should represent the current status of the proposal at the time signatures are
gathered. Therefore, the following approach should be taken.

1. Prepare the proposal.

2. Print the cover page.

3. Distribute the proposal with the cover page and collect signatures.

4. Scan the signed cover sheet at a resolution of about 600 dpi.

5. Convert the scanned cover sheet to PDF, and move on to the next step.

Note that the cover sheet must still be included in the proposal document (see Generate PDF
file) even if signatures can not be gathered before the submission deadline.

If a signed and scanned cover sheet is not submitted electronically, a complete copy of the
proposal, including a cover sheet, must be printed, signed and sent to SRC via USPS or a courier
service such as UPS, DHL or FedEx.

Hard-copy proposals are not required if a signed and scanned copy of the cover sheet included in
the uploaded and submitted proposal.

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8. Generate PDF file
Your proposal must be uploaded as a single PDF document formatted to a page size of 8.5 by 11
inches. In particular, do not use A4 as your page size.

Use Acrobat (or another reliable up-to-date PDF generator) to merge all of the proposal
documents into a single file. The individual components must appear in the following order.

1. The cover page scanned and signed (see: Printing cover page)

2. The Research summary

3. SRC Research Catalog page, one page per task

4. Annual budget pages, one per year, most recent year first, signed and scanned

5. Other support

6. Monthly expenditures

Setting PDF properties

After your proposal’s components have been merged into a single PDF file, and prior to upload,
set the following PDF document properties (In Acrobat: File > Document Properties).

ƒ Under Description, provide a Title.

ƒ Under Initial View, set Show to Page Only, set Magnification to Fit Width, and set Page
Layout to Default. And set Open to Page 1.

Optimization hints
Avoid submitting unnecessarily large PDF files. This will not endear you to the reviewers.
Proposal PDF files should generally not be larger than 1 MB.

To keep the file size down to a manageable size, here are some optimization suggestions.

1. Optimize images for size in your image editor before inclusion into your document.

2. Scan only those pages that have signatures; other pages should be converted directly from
the source files (Word, LaTeX, etc.). Do not scan at resolution higher than 300 dpi. Scan
in black and white, not color or gray scale.

3. Use the most current version of Adobe Acrobat to generate your PDF files. Use the
features in Adobe Acrobat designed for reducing file size.

4. Follow Adobe’s Reduce PDF File Size guidelines:

http://media.studio.adobe.com/tips/media/en/acr7optimize/pdfs/acr7optimize.pdf..

5. When generating the PDF file, choose: Optimize for Fast Web View.

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9. Upload proposal
Once the proposal has been prepared, you are ready to upload it. Sign in and select the Upload
Proposal tab.

When you click on the Upload Proposal button, a small pop-up window opens, allowing you to
browse and select a file for upload. The file must be a PDF file no larger than 50 megabytes.

After selecting your file and clicking the Upload button, the file will be uploaded. In a few
moments, you should see the following indication of upload success.

In order to finalize the upload, you must now click the Save button at the bottom left corner of
the form.

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After doing the Save, back on the View Status tab, you should now see that Upload Status has
changed to: Proposal has been uploaded.

Note that the uploaded file’s original name is indicated, but on the server it is renamed to match
the proposal identifier.

Upon completing an upload, e-mail notifications are sent to the contributor and to the principal
investigator.

For review by the PI, the university administrator, or any other authorized party, the uploaded
proposal file is available for download. Simply click the Download Proposal button on the View
Status tab.

In order to accommodate legitimate changes to the proposal, the proposal may be uploaded
multiple times; you are allowed to resubmit updated copies of your proposal as long as the
proposal calendar allows. If you resubmit, the previous copy is replaced and is no longer available.
SRC does not support replacement of proposal components. If you have a change to make,
update your single proposal PDF file and resubmit the whole document.

Important Note: Uploading a proposal does not automatically submit the proposal. Each time
you Upload Proposal, you must then Submit Proposal. For details, see the next step.

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10. Submit proposal
Once the proposal file has been uploaded and you have confirmed that the information provided
online is correct and complete, return to the View Status tab and press the Submit Proposal
button. You should now see that Submission Status has changed from Ready to Submit to
Submitted on [date/time].

Your proposal has been officially submitted to SRC. E-mail notifications are sent, not only to the
submitter and to the principal investigator, but also to the university administrator and to SRC.

Now, for review by the PI, a university official, or any other authorized party, the uploaded
submission is available for download. Simply click the Download Proposals button and Save
the file to your local file system.

Important: Any time that you upload an updated version of your proposal, or make changes to
the information on the information form, you must resubmit the proposal to SRC—prior to the
deadline, of course. Until you do, Submission Status will remind you that you have made
modifications since the last submission.

If your uploaded proposal document does not include signatures for all of the budget worksheets
and the cover sheet, you must send SRC a fully signed paper copy of your proposal.

Courier Address:
Brighton Hall, Suite 120
1101 Slater Road
Durham, NC 27703

Postal Address:
P.O. Box 12053
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2053

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Change History
January 30, 2006

ƒ This is the original release.

March 1, 2006

ƒ On page 12 and elsewhere, the position of the Research Catalog pages, in the collation
order of the proposal document, changed.

ƒ More clarity and emphasis was given in stating that after the Submit action is not implicit
in any other action, including upload (or re-upload) of the proposal document, and
update of proposal information.

March 10, 2006

ƒ On page 12, the section on Other Support was changed to include SRC other support.

April 5, 2006

ƒ In section #8 (Generate PDF File), there is now more discussion of reducing PDF file
size and a link has been added to an Adobe article on how to Reduce PDF File Size.

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