Complete and final proposals must be submitted to Research Administration Services (RAS) at 9am five full business days before the sponsor's deadline date. RAS cannot guarantee that proposals that do not meet the five day requirement will be processed in time for the sponsor’s deadline.
The internal deadline allows RAS to:
- Review and collaborate with the PI and DLCI staff on any identified issues before a proposal is submitted to the sponsor
- Process large numbers of proposals with simultaneous deadlines
- Detect and work around issues in proposal systems
The five working days do not include the sponsor’s submission deadline. Use the RAS Due Date Calculator to find the submission deadline for your proposal.
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The Proposal Submission Deadline Policy applies to submissions of new, competing renewal, continuation and re-submission proposals regardless of sponsor, if the sponsor specifies a deadline. In other cases:
- If no proposal deadline is specified, RAS will expect to have five working days to process the proposal from the time of submission.
- Annual progress reports, revised budgets and similar items are not subject to this policy. However, we ask that you give RAS as much time as possible when submitting these items.
Late Submission of Proposals
Any proposal that is not completed and submitted to RAS by the RAS due date requires a waiver approved by both the Department/Lab Head of the submitting unit and the submitting unit’s Dean/Vice President for Research before it will be processed by RAS.
- All extensions must be approved by the submitting unit’s Dean/VPR or their designee.
- RAS will not grant extensions on its own to PIs.
To request a waiver of the RAS due date, PIs should follow the process established by the School where their unit reports. Units reporting to the Office of the Vice President for Research should follow the VPR process for requesting a late proposal submission.
Proposals that have been granted a waiver will be submitted by RAS using best efforts. Proposals that are received in RAS close to the sponsor deadline may receive limited or no review. If the resulting award’s terms are unacceptable due to the limited review, MIT reserves the right not to accept the award.
Local DLCI Policies
Some DLCIs have also enacted internal policies specifying PIs provide their DLCI staff a required number of days to work on a proposal before it is submitted to RAS. PIs should confirm their local DLCI's policies when starting a proposal submission.
Updated October 31, 2025