Targeted Grants in MPS

Letter of Intent (LOI) Instructions

Deadline for Letter of Intent (LOI) Submission: Rolling

LOIs must be submitted via the Simons Award Manager (SAM). The deadline is rolling, and an LOI can be submitted at any time. Please click on the “Funding Opportunities” icon and navigate to the Targeted Grants in MPS call. Click the “Create Application” button to begin. LOIs should be started and submitted under the applicant’s own SAM account.

For projects with more than one PI, the LOI should be submitted by the PI designated as the main PI and their institution. LOI and proposal attachments should be single spaced and in typeface no smaller than 10-point font. Margins, in all directions, must be at least one-half inch.

To submit an LOI, the following sections must be completed in SAM:

Record Summary

The applicant’s name and institution will appear in this section. The institution will default to the user’s primary affiliation in their SAM profile. Please ensure the listed institution is the one to which funds must be administered if selected for funding. If the institution or applicant must be changed, please refer to the SAM Frequently Asked Questions for assistance.

Proposal Tab

• Applicant Details: Enter all required fields, including academic rank, position/title, and your ORCID iD. The applicant may edit information via the “Edit Profile” button as needed. To add your ORCID iD, navigate to the ORCID tab of the user profile, and select the “Create or Connect Your ORCID iD” button to link to your ORCID profile. Applicants must complete their profiles by clicking the “Complete Profile” button on the user profile in order to submit.
• Degree(s): Click the “Add/Modify Degree(s)” button to provide this information (optional).
• Application Details:
  • Enter a title.
  • Enter the requested budget total.
• Proposal:
  • LOI Narrative (two-page limit, plus up to one page for references and figures, which can be embedded within the text):
    • Signed by the main PI on letterhead and includes a brief summary of the support requested, including the names of the other PIs involved, if applicable, the scientific goals, background relevant to the application and a brief budget justification.
  • Budget (one-page limit):
    • A tentative yearly budget, indicating the total amount and major expense categories with proposed start and end dates.
  • Personnel Biosketches:
    • Upload a biosketch for each PI and co-Investigator (co-I). Biosketches must be in SciENcv-, NIH- or NSF-style format or a two-to-three-page CV. Please name each PDF as Last Name_First Name_Biosketch.
  • Indicate the extent to which, if any, generative AI technology was used and how it was used to develop your proposal.

Contacts & Personnel Tab

• Institution Administrative Contacts: Institution contacts are not required at this stage. However, if you would like to grant an institutional official or administrator access to your LOI, please add them to this section.
• Project Personnel: All project personnel, including, but not limited to, additional PIs, Co-Is, collaborators, consultants and postdoctoral research associates must be added to this section. Please do not add the applicant to this section.

Check Application Progress

Click the “Check Application Progress” button to verify that all required information and files have been submitted. Any missing requirements will be listed at the top of the screen and must be corrected before the LOI can be submitted.

Submit Application

Click the “Submit Application” button. A confirmation page will appear once the application is successfully submitted. Institutional sign-off is not required for the LOI stage. You will also receive an email confirming its submission. The submitted LOI will appear in the “Submitted” tab of the “Applications and Awards” table on your SAM home page.

Once your LOI has been submitted, the Simons Foundation staff will be in touch if we require any additional information or revisions to your LOI.

LOI Approval

If an LOI is approved, the status will change to “In Progress” and appear in the “Draft” column of the “Applications and Awards” table. A notification will be sent to the PI listed on the application, inviting them to submit a full application in SAM.

Full Application Instructions

Deadline for Full Application Submission: The full proposal deadline will be noted in the LOI notification and will be no sooner than three months from the date of the LOI approval.

The full application can be found in the “Drafts” tab of the “Applications and Awards” table on your SAM home page.

Please adhere to any additional guidelines that may be included in your LOI Approval notification. The following sections must be completed in SAM:

Record Summary

The applicant’s name and institution will appear in this section. The institution will default to the user’s primary affiliation in their SAM profile. Please ensure the listed institution is the one to which funds must be administered if selected for funding. If the institution or applicant must be changed, please refer to the SAM Frequently Asked Questions for assistance.

Proposal Tab

• Applicant Details: Enter all required fields, including academic rank, position/title, and your ORCID iD. The applicant may edit information via the “Edit Profile” button as needed. To add your ORCID iD, navigate to the ORCID tab of the user profile, and select the “Create or Connect Your ORCID iD” button to link to your ORCID profile. Applicants must complete their profiles by clicking the “Complete Profile” button on the user profile in order to submit.
• Degree(s): Click the “Add/Modify Degree(s)” button to provide this information (optional).
• Application Details:
  • The application title will be prepopulated with the title entered in the LOI section.
  • Enter the requested Start and End dates.
• Proposal:
  • Proposal Narrative (six-page limit, plus up to two pages for references and figures, which can be embedded within the text):
    • Provide a summary of the support requested, name of the PI(s) involved, if applicable, scientific goal, background relevant to the application and the significance of the requested support
  • Personnel Biosketches: Upload a biosketch for each PI and co-Investigator (co-I). Biosketches must be in SciENcv-, NIH- or NSF-style format or a two-to-three-page CV. Please name each PDF as Last Name_First Name_Biosketch.
• Indicate the extent to which, if any, generative AI technology was used and how it was used to develop your proposal.
• Indicate if the PI or any project personnel listed on this application are affiliated with the Simons Foundation or the Flatiron Institute as visiting scholars, independent contractors or employees.
• Data & Renewable Reagents: If applicable, indicate your plan for generating and sharing data and/or renewable reagents.

Contacts & Personnel Tab

• Institution Administrative Contacts: At least one Signing Official and one Financial Officer must be added to this section. Please refer to the instructions provided in SAM for adding Institution Administrative Contacts.
• Project Personnel: All project personnel, including, but not limited to, additional PIs, Co-Is, collaborators, consultants and postdoctoral research associates, must be added to this section. Please do not add the applicant to this section.
  • Subcontracts: Applications with multiple PIs from different institutions that would like to be paid directly by the main institution must be added to the “Project Personnel” section in order to generate separate budgets for each PI, as follows:
    • Will there be a subcontract?: Indicate Yes.
    • Click the “Add/Modify” button to add the Subcontract PI.
    • If the Subcontract PI should be given access to the application to complete their own budget, please add them in the role “Subcontract Lead – With Application Access.” This will send an email to the Subcontract PI notifying them that they have been granted access to the application, and a subcontract budget will be created for them in the “Budget” tab.
    • If the Subcontract PI should not be given access to the application, please add them in the role of “Subcontract Contact – Without Access.” Once added to the table, click the “Add More Details” button and select the role “Subcontract Lead” from the dropdown. In this case, a subcontract budget will be created for them in the “Budget” tab; however, they will not receive a notification. The main PI will be responsible for completing the subcontract budget on behalf of the Subcontract PI.
    • Please click the “Save Draft” button in order for the newly added personnel to display in the table.

Budget Tab

• Click the “Edit/Modify” button to complete an up to five-year budget in U.S. dollars for the proposed project. Please adhere to all budget guidelines listed in the RFA, your LOI Approval notification and the detailed instructions provided within the budget window. The total amount requested for each individual budget period must be a whole number.
• You must first enter the start and end dates in the “Proposal” tab to open the budget window.
• If there is a subcontract, you must first add the subcontract lead to the “Project Personnel” section of the “Contacts & Personnel” tab. Once added, a subcontract budget will be created and must be completed.
• If including personnel costs, you must add the relevant personnel to the “Project Personnel” section of the “Contacts & Personnel” tab. If personnel have not been hired at the time of submission, you may report their costs under TBD.
• Please enter each PI on each proposal in the Personnel Costs section of that proposal budget even if not requesting salary in order to reflect the PI’s percent effort.
  • For PIs and co-Is requesting summer salary with a 9-or-10 month appointment, please only select Academic for the Appt Type (which refers to the individual’s institutional appointment) and the base salary corresponding to this appointment type. The percent effort should then be adjusted accordingly.
  • For PIs and co-Is requesting summer salary at non-U.S. institutions and/or those receiving 12 months of salary, the program allows them to request up to 1/12 of their calendar year salary as a contribution to research time on the project, only if an exception exists where their institution permits extra compensation for specific, separate activities outside of regular duties and provided that the summer salary request is not in violation of their institution’s policies of more than 100 percent effort per year. Please select Annual for the Appt Type (which refers to the individual’s institutional appointment) and the base salary corresponding to this appointment type. The percent effort should then be adjusted accordingly.
• Do not combine personnel on one budget line (e.g. multiple postdocs must be itemized individually).
• Provide justification for each budget line item entered, including all Personnel Costs requested. Please note that the budget justification should be detailed and appropriate for the funds being requested. An insufficient budget justification will result in the proposal not being considered further.
• Within each budget period, you have the ability to copy the budget and justification from the previous period and then make edits as needed. Important note: if content has already been entered in year 2 or 3, for example, copying from the previous year will not replace the content – it will only add the previous year’s content, potentially duplicating the budget the next year. Duplicated entries can only be deleted individually by line item.

Publications & Other Support Tab

• Publications: Provide a list of up to 10 relevant publications for each PI and Co-I via PDF upload or SAM profiles. Applicants selecting from their profile can import data from other publication databases such as ORCID, PubMed or OpenAlex. Please name each PDF as Last Name_First Name_Publications.
• Other Support: Please report any current or pending funding sources via PDF upload (SciENcv-, NIH- or NSF-style format) or by selecting them from your profile. Applicants selecting from their profile can import data from other publication databases such as ORCID.
  • Provide all current and pending external Applicant and Additional PI support, which includes all financial resources, whether federal or nonfederal, available in direct support of the PIs and their research. It is not necessary to include internal funding or this current application.
  • If providing via SAM profile, reporting overlap is required to submit an application. While overlap is not a consideration for funding in this program, please click on the Report Overlap button for each entry and select Yes or No as appropriate.
  • If using PDF upload, SciENcv-, NIH- or NSF-style format is sufficient and should at least provide the award number, source of funding, title of award, dates of project and total direct costs for each support item listed. Please name each PDF as Last Name_First Name_Support.

Check Application Progress

Click the “Check Application Progress” button to verify that all required information and files have been submitted. Any missing requirements will be listed at the top of the screen and must be corrected before the application can be submitted.

Institutional Sign-off and Application Submission

When the application is complete, please click the “Send for Sign-off” button to send the application to your Signing Official for signature. You will not be able to send the application for sign-off if any application requirements are missing. The Signing Official will receive an email from [email protected] notifying them that an application requires their signature. The Signing Official must electronically sign the application via the “Submission” tab of the application. Once their signature is entered and saved, the Signing Official must click the “Submit Signature” button. This will officially submit the application to the foundation. Upon submitting their signature, the Signing Official will see a confirmation page, and the application will now appear in the “Submitted” tab of the “Applications and Awards” table. The applicant, Signing Official and Financial Officer will receive an email from [email protected] when the application is signed and submitted. Please note that you will not be able to submit an application if the deadline has passed.

Once your application has been submitted, the Simons Foundation staff will be in touch if we require any additional information or revisions to your application.

The Simons Foundation and The Simons Foundation International

Please note that in the event of budgetary or other considerations, The Simons Foundation, Inc. (“the Foundation” or “SF”) reserves the right to refer an application to The Simons Foundation International, Ltd. (“SFI”) for consideration and funding. SFI and SF have entered into an agreement pursuant to which SF provides program operations and grant administration services, including payment processing, to SFI. SFI grant recipients are subject to SF Policies and Procedures.