PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

1. Awards will be made at the allocated budget amount or the requested cost proposal amount, whichever, is less. Cost proposals exceeding the allocated budget amount will not be considered and award will be made at the allocated budget amount. Those cost proposals exceeding 20% of the allocated budget amount will be required to be revised and resubmitted.

2. Upon completion of the Stage 1 Peer Review, investigators will receive a letter via email informing them that the peer review panel has recommended their proposal be implemented as part of the Chandra Observing Program as well as a copy of the panel's evaluation. A second letter will be sent via email to all US-based investigators inviting them to submit a Stage 2 cost proposal if funding is required to carry out the investigation.

3. When a U.S. investigator obtains grant funds for a project that involves non-U.S. investigators, no funding may flow through the U.S. investigator to the non-U.S. investigators. This includes funding for travel for the non-U.S. investigators.

EACH PI AND CO-I INSTITUTION SHALL SUBMIT THEIR STAGE 2 COST PROPOSALS BOTH ELECTRONICALLY, USING THE REMOTE PROPOSAL SYSTEM (RPS), AND VIA HARD COPY. See instructions below. A List of Common Errors that have occurred on Chandra Cost Proposals is available for your review.

Detailed instructions for preparation of the Cover Page can be found at:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/spp/sp/forms/CP_Cover_Instruct.html

Detailed instructions for preparation of the Budget Form and the Budget Justification can be found at:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/spp/sp/forms/Budget_Instruct.html

A Stage 2 cost proposal consists of:

1. A Chandra Cost Proposal Cover Page Form with institutional signature. Note that the Institution Administrative Contact information and Investigator information must be complete. This includes the email addresses for both the Administrative Contact and the Investigator. Group email addresses, e.g. sponsoredprojects@institution.edu, are not acceptable.

2. A Budget for the PI using the Budget Form. The PI's Budget Form must include the totals of the Co-Is' budgets as line items in Section J of the Form. Note: The dollar amounts in Section J must match exactly the dollar amounts submitted by the CoI institution's cost proposal.

3. A succinct one or two page Budget Justification. The Budget Justification should include a breakdown of the work assignments for all funded investigators taking part in the investigation. The Budget Justification must describe the basis of estimate and rationale for each proposed component of cost, including direct labor, subcontracts/subawards, consultants, travel, other direct costs, and facilities and equipment. The Proposer must provide adequate budget detail to support estimates. The Proposer must state the source of cost estimates (e.g., based on quote, on previous purchases for same or similar item(s), cost data obtained from internet research, etc.). The Proposer must describe in detail the purpose of any proposed travel in relation to the grant and provide the basis of estimate, including information or assumptions on destination, number of travelers, number of days, conference fees, air fare, lodging, meals and incidentals, etc. If destinations are not known, the Proposer should, for estimating purposes, make reasonable assumptions about the potential destination and use historical cost data based on previous trips taken or conferences attended. The Chandra Science Proposal Number and Title must be included on the top of the Budget Justification. Do not attach a copy of the Science Proposal as we have the proposal in our files.

4. A written Certification for any workstation and general-purpose equipment costing $5,000 or more. The certification form can be found at:
   http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/cfa/spp/sp/forms/Cert_Purch_Equip.pdf.

5. A List of Current and Pending Support Information must be provided for all ongoing and pending projects and proposals that involve the proposing PI. This information must be provided for each of the following two categories of awards that may exist at the time of the proposal submission deadline:
   • Current Awards (for any of the period that overlaps with the submitted proposal), and
   • Pending Awards (including the proposal being submitted to CXC).

   For each of these two categories, using a format of the proposer's choosing, provide the following information: name of the investigator, project title, sponsoring agency, period-of-performance, amount of award or total proposed budget, and commitment by PI in terms of a fraction of a full-time equivalent (FTE) work year. If the PI has no Current or Pending Support, then a statement to that effect must be included. The Chandra Science Proposal Number and Title must be included on the top of the Current and Pending Research Support pages.

6. A copy of the applicant institution's Federally-Approved Indirect Cost (IDC) Rate Agreement.

7. Certifications and Assurances required by U.S. Code: The signature of the Institutional Representative on the Budget Form verifies that the proposing organization complies with the required certifications and assurances; therefore, they do not have to be independently signed and submitted.

8. Assurance of Compliance - China Funding Restriction: Complete all information on the form, except the Grant Award Number. The Assurance is required to be signed by the authorized signatory of the proposing institution and submitted with the hard copy of the cost proposal. The form is not available through RPS.

NOTE: Any documents that contain proprietary information must clearly be marked "PROPRIETARY".

Cost Proposal Submission Process. Note that each cost proposal must be submitted both electronically using RPS and via hard copy.

1. Electronic Submission:

   The Remote Proposal Submission (RPS) system is found at http://cxc.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/RPS/Chandra_Budget/RPS.pl. This must be used for electronic submission of the Cost Proposal Cover Page, Budget Forms, Budget Justification and List of Current and Pending Support. In order to submit the Budget Justification and List of Current and Pending Support, after submitting the Cost Proposal Cover Page and Budget Forms, click on the "Budget Justification" button and attach the Budget Justification and List of Current and Pending Support. After submitting electronically, selecting the PDF button on RPS will return a PDF file containing the Cover and Budget forms. This can be used, along with the uploaded PDF files, for the hardcopy submission.

   Each proposing PI institution should submit, a single Stage 2 cost proposal, for each approved project, containing the PI's own budget requests and include the budget requests of any Co-Is seeking funding in Section J of the Budget Form.

   Co-Is shall provide the PI with the necessary budget information to be included in Section J of the PI's budget form.

2. Hard Copy Submission:

   The hard copy of your cost proposal may be generated by following the instructions for the RPS. Note that CoI institutions may now submit the hard copy of their cost proposal directly to the SAO Subawards Section. Hard copies must be signed by the institution's authorized signatory.

   Hardcopy submission of the Stage 2 Cost Proposal to the SAO Subawards Section may be done using one of two methods. Please note that e-mail is the preferred method.

   • The signed cost proposal must be scanned into a single, complete Adobe PDF file. The signed and scanned Adobe PDF copies of the cost proposal shall be submitted by e-mail to: chandracp@cfa.harvard.edu. For PIs, the e-mail subject line must state "Chandra Cost Proposal #XXXXXXXX PI". (Replace Xs with assigned Chandra Science Proposal number.) If the submission is for a CoI, the e-mail subject line must state "Chandra Cost Proposal #XXXXXXXX CoI". (Replace Xs with assigned Chandra Science Proposal number.) Do not use any other e-mail address for submission of the cost proposal.

   • Cost proposals may also be submitted using a courier service or the U.S. Mail. In this case each proposing institution shall submit an original and 1 copy of the Stage 2 cost proposal information as described above. All original cost proposals must have the original signature of the institution's authorized signatory.

     Hard copy cost proposals using U.S. Mail or courier service shall be sent to:

     Mailing Address: Subawards Section Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 60 Garden Street, Mail Stop 22 Cambridge, MA 02138-1516

     Courier Delivery (i.e. FedEx): Subawards Section Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 100 Acorn Park Drive, Mail Stop 22 Cambridge, MA 02140-2302

Assistance with the RPS System is available by contacting the CXC Help Desk.

Questions regarding cost proposals should be directed to the Subawards Section, Carol Dzengelewski.