UCSF Research Development Office (RDO): Grant Templates and Guides: Home

The UCSF Research Development Office has prepared this LibGuide to support the UCSF research community in the development of grant proposals.

Please note that, while we do update these documents as necessary, it is your responsibility to verify specific information. The date of last update is in the header of each document. UCSF MyAccess will be required to view many of the documents. Please contact the RDO at rdoinfo@ucsf.edu to inquire about updated information.

The types of resources you will find in these pages include:

• Facilities and Resources: descriptions of the UCSF Campus, Schools, Departments, and other institutional entities
• Letters of Support: examples of LOS to express institutional support
• Human Subjects: examples and templates for Protection of Human Subjects, Single IRB Plan, etc.
• Project management resources to assist you in the development of any proposal.
• Resources on various NIH funding mechanisms, including instrumentation grants, PCORI grants, training (T32) and career development grants, NIH diversity supplements, and the NIH loan repayment program.

The Research Development Office (RDO) at UCSF serves at the nexus of research and research administration to promote, support, strengthen, and grow the research enterprise at UCSF. By working with faculty, administration staff, and leadership partners, the RDO seeks to attract extramural research funding, increase institutional competitiveness, create research relationships, and foster innovation. To fulfill this mission, the RDO offers the following programs:

• Resource Allocation Program (RAP) manages the dissemination, submission, review, and award of various intramural funding opportunities.
• Large Grant Development Program (LGDP) supports proposal development for large, multi-investigator project grants.
• Limited Submissions Program (LSP) is responsible for disseminating limited submission opportunities, coordinating the internal review and selection process, and notifying all applicants of outcomes.
• Team Science Program (TSP) and the Special Strategic Projects (SSP) program foster and facilitate scientific collaborations between internal and external research teams.

As a service- and solutions-oriented team, the RDO operates with integrity, professionalism, and respect for those with whom we work within and outside of UCSF. The RDO strives to act as an enzymatic catalyst for your research efforts - lowering the activation energy for effective research collaboration and proposal development.

COS Pivot-RP Finding Funding Tool

Pivot-RP is an online suite of tools for researchers and faculty that is accessible using a web browser. Pivot-RP provides research administrators, research development professionals, and individual faculty members quick and easy access to the right funding opportunities, funding, and people. Pivot-RP provides global and local connections that strengthen research by exploring new avenues for funding and collaboration – for faculty, staff researchers, and graduate students.

Pivot-RP includes intelligent mapping features that expedite funding discovery, dissemination, and collaboration. With Pivot-RP, connecting the right opportunities with the right people is routine.

Finding Funding with Pivot

Pivot allows researchers to search a comprehensive database of over 40,000 private, federal, and international funding opportunities, as well as to save results, set automated funding alerts, and identify potential collaborators. These opportunities include the funder, funding category (keywords), amount, application requirements and deadlines, and where to find more information.

Pivot-RP enables you to mark opportunities in order to track them. You can mark highly relevant opportunities, ones that you are actively dealing with, by setting the funding opportunity's Track option. Tracking an opportunity enables you to receive updates when the opportunity changes and to get personal reminders about the opportunity's deadlines.

Pivot, administered by the UCSF Research Development Office (RDO), is free to all UCSF faculty, staff and students. For more information on Pivot training please see the presentation at this link Pivot: Finding Funding Opportunities, prepared by the UCSF Library, as well as the excellent vender instruction guides at https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Pivot/Product_Documentation.  

Set up and manage an account

If you do not have a Pivot-RP account, go to https://pivot.proquest.com, select the Create account link, and follow the on-screen instructions. You must select an affiliated member institution from the list on the page and specify a valid email address for that institution.After submitting your information, Pivot-RP sends you an email message with a verification URL. Select the URL to confirm your registration and log in.

Dimensions Research Analytics Tool

Dimensions Analytics is a linked research data resource that tracks information on publications and their citations, and other research outputs modes such as mentions, datasets, research funding, patents, clinical trials, and policy documents. The UCSF community has access to this online database and tool, jointly supported by the Research Development Office (RDO) and the Library.

Training sessions will be offered again in Spring 2025

Representatives from Digital Science are collaborating with RDO and the Library to offer online (Zoom) training sessions for the UCSF community.  This training is targeted to a specific UCSF audience but others are invited to join.  Register to attend via the UCSF Library Calendar:

Any training events will also be recorded and made available to the UCSF community after the online sessions.

We encourage members of the UCSF research community to take a few minutes to try the tool, which is available at https://app.dimensions.ai/. Be sure to login with your UCSF credentials to enable the full functionality of the database.

*Coming Soon*