Proposal Team & Roles Planning Guide
Plan Your Proposal Team
Developing a competitive proposal often requires contributions from multiple people with different roles, expertise, and responsibilities. Establishing the proposal team early can help clarify expectations, coordinate work, and keep proposal development moving on schedule.
This guide can help you identify who should be involved in the proposal process, clarify roles and responsibilities, and establish how your team will work together from early planning through submission.
Build Your Proposal Team
Consider who needs to be involved early in proposal development and what expertise or responsibilities each person brings to the process. The composition of the team will vary depending on the size, complexity, sponsor, and requirements of the proposal.
Investigators & Research Team
PI/project lead, co-investigators, key personnel, collaborators, and other researchers contributing to the proposed work.
Research Administration
Departmental, school, or college research administrators supporting budgets, institutional requirements, subawards, routing, and submission.
Proposal Development Support
Research development staff, writers/editors, graphics support, and others helping coordinate and strengthen the proposal.
Partners & Other Contributors
External collaborators, community or industry partners, consultants, evaluators, advisory groups, and other contributors required by the project.
Define Roles & Responsibilities
Once the proposal team is identified, clarify who is responsible for each part of the proposal development process. Establishing responsibilities early can reduce duplication, identify gaps, and help the team coordinate work across interconnected proposal components.
Scientific & Technical Content
Identify who will lead development of the proposal narrative and who will contribute to the research approach, technical sections, figures, tables, and other scientific content. The team should establish at the outset who will drive the writing process, typically the lead PI, and ensure contributions are brought together into a cohesive narrative.
Proposal Coordination
Identify who will manage the proposal timeline, track requirements and deliverables, coordinate contributors, and monitor completion of proposal components such as letters and other supporting materials. This person helps keep responsibilities, dependencies, and deadlines clear throughout the proposal development process.
Budget & Research Administration
Clarify responsibility for the budget and justification, subawards, institutional requirements, biosketches and other required documents, routing, and submission. Coordinate with the appropriate departmental, school, or college research administrator early to establish responsibilities and internal deadlines.
Writing, Editing & Integration
Identify who will support development, integration, and refinement of the proposal narrative, including bringing contributions together into a cohesive draft and editing for clarity, consistency, and alignment with sponsor criteria. If time allows, consider planning early for a mock or reviewer-style review so the team has sufficient time to incorporate feedback before submission.
Review & Final Approval
Establish who will conduct final scientific, editorial, and administrative reviews and who has authority to approve the proposal for submission. Build in sufficient time to resolve outstanding issues and complete required institutional reviews before the sponsor deadline.
Establish How Your Team Will Work
Establishing shared expectations for how the team will communicate, manage materials, make decisions, and meet deadlines can help keep proposal development organized and reduce delays as the submission deadline approaches.
Communication & Meetings
Agree on how the team will communicate, how often it will meet, and how updates, questions, decisions, and action items will be shared and documented.
Shared Documents & Version Control
Establish where proposal materials will be stored, how team members will contribute to shared documents, and how drafts and versions will be managed throughout development.
Internal Deadlines
Set internal deadlines for narrative drafts, figures, budgets, supporting documents, reviews, and revisions well in advance of the sponsor deadline. Account for institutional deadlines and dependencies between proposal components.
Decision-Making
Clarify how key scientific, budgetary, and proposal decisions will be made, who needs to be consulted, and who has final decision-making authority when the team cannot reach consensus.
Put Your Proposal Team Plan Into Practice
Use the Proposal Team Planning Template to document team members, responsibilities, key deliverables, internal deadlines, and shared working expectations.