Sponsored Project award notices and all accompanying materials should be directed to the Division of Sponsored Programs/100 Gilmore Hall for review, negotiation, acceptance, and processing. DSP will match the award notice to the routed application already on file and initiate the award process.

Each sponsored project award comes with a unique set of terms and conditions, which may range from entirely flexible to quite restrictive. The Division of Sponsored Programs is responsible for reviewing the award documents and, if need be, negotiating the terms and conditions attached to an award. The goals in negotiation are to protect the investigator's publication and intellectual property rights; to protect the institution against harmful or unmanageable stipulations; and to ensure any agreement is in keeping with state and federal regulations as well as University requirements.

Once DSP receives, reviews, and approves all necessary award paperwork and accepts an award on the UI's behalf, DSP in conjunction with Grant Accounting issues the Award Authorization and Activation Notice (AAAN), attaching it and a copy of the corresponding award materials to the DSP Research Tracker record. Occasionally, it is necessary to issue an Advanced Master File Key (aMFK) before DSP receives the award paperwork from the sponsor; see here for more details.