UW Research
Forms and Templates

Identifying Key Terms in Solicitations

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A variety of terms in funding opportunities indicate a higher level of review by the PI and/or the University is required before the proposal can be submitted.

Examples:

  • Certain requirements may be cost prohibitive and a PI may decide not to move forward with a proposal
  • Compliance requirements, intellectual property conditions, or international relationships may require additional review time
  • Requiring the UW to accept terms & conditions of an award at the time of proposal submission requires a risk assessment and institutional review

To help expedite proposal preparation and review time, identify these terms as early as possible and take appropriate steps, including routing these proposals to OSP at least 7 business days before a sponsor deadline.

Key Terms to Watch for in Solicitations

Download and review the List of Key Terms for specifics and links to guidance.

If any of the terms appear in the solicitation, and, after reviewing guidance, you believe the UW is eligible to apply for the opportunity, ensure all required steps are taken before routing an eGC1 for department, school, and OSP approval.

Note when the UW will be a subrecipient: Be sure to review the original solicitation from the originating funder. You may need to establish a login to access sponsor systems.

Tips for Finding Terms in Solicitations

Web Page Content or Word Documents:

Use CTRL + F or Command + F (MacOS) and enter individual terms of interest to search for and highlight terms on the web page or document.

Searching for multiple terms on a webpage requires a browser extension.

Searching for multiple terms in a Word document can be accomplished using a Macro. Follow Macro instructions available via Microsoft Support.

PDFs:

Use Adobe Acrobat to open the file. Use CTRL + F or Command + F (MacOS) to search for individual terms or follow advanced search instructions available on the Adobe website to search for multiple terms or search multiple documents at once.

AI Discovery – All formats:

Consider prompting AI tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot,  OpenAI ChatGPT EDU to scan solicitation content for terms. For example: “Does this webpage [webpage URL] contain any of the following terms [copy/paste terms list]? If so, which ones?”

Review the Generative AI Use Guidelines

NOTE: We DO NOT recommend loading proposal content or other sensitive material into AI tools.

Accuracy remains a concern with AI tools; be mindful of reliability of results and false negatives.

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