Sponsored Operations Office | Research

The Sponsored Operations Office is dedicated to providing a business infrastructure in support of the Vice President for Research (VPR) operations. Our main functions include management and support of the research database, data analysis, interpretation, reporting, general support in the day-to-day operations of the VPR office, and development and oversight of internal business and data processes utilizing Lean principles.

The Sponsored Operations Office maintains a database called TechTracS to track sponsored proposal and award activity for the University. TechTracS contains 30+ years of history. This data is used to provide information to other University resources and tools, as well as to keep deans, chairs, directors and other administrators apprised of these activities.

During fiscal years 2023-24, the Vice President for Research office is implementing a new cloud-based system called Cayuse for managing its portfolio of proposals, awards, technologies, inventions, conflict of interest, human and animal ethics, and institutional bio- and radiation safety activities. Work began on this implementation in August 2022. Visit the Cayuse Implementation page for more information.

Requesting Proposal and Award Data

This office is the central source for data for University proposal and award activity. To receive proposal and award data on an ad hoc basis please complete a request form. The Sponsored Operations Office strives to fulfill requests within 24-48 hours on business days. During periods of high request volume, additional time may be required. Please note that all requests for award expenditure data must be submitted to Sponsored Programs Accounting.

Sponsored Proposal Status Tracking Practices

Proposals are kept in pending status for a maximum of 14 months following its submission. The status is changed from "Pending" to either "Awarded"; or to "Declined", or to "Pending-WIP" if it is believed the funding may be awarded but there is some extenuating delay. The "Pending-WIP" eventually changes to "Awarded" or "Declined" based on the outcome of the proposal.

A proposal's status is obtained in two ways:

Notice directly from the sponsor or Principal Investigator

Federal agencies frequently send the principal investigator, and often the university, a notification of award or declination of the proposal (most often via email). Some agencies do not provide a formal notification to the principal investigator of its decision to not fund a particular project. Often times the principal investigator hears verbally from the sponsoring agency or the PI has reached out to the sponsoring agency to inquire about the funding status. In an effort to keep the data up-to-date, if you learn your project is not being funded or that the funding may take an unusually long time, you may send an update regarding the status to vpr-operations@mtu.edu and the database will be updated accordingly.

Auto-emails requesting a status update from the Principal Investigator

Frequently, the university does not receive notification from agencies regarding a particular proposal's funding status. In these instances, a status request is generated via email to the Principal Investigator. If a proposal has been pending for one year after submission the system will generate an email to the principal investigator requesting an update on the funding status for that particular proposal. Based on the feedback received, the proposal status will then be updated in the database.

If no feedback is received from the principal investigator and the proposal remains in "Pending" status after 395 days, another email reminder is generated and sent to the principal investigator asking for an update on the funding status. The email also states that in the event we do not hear from them over the next 30 days, the proposal will automatically be declined in the database.

For proposals in "Pending-WIP" status, the principal investigator will receive an email from this office requesting another update regarding the funding status on an adhoc basis.