Strengthening Our Data: Always Remember to Include the Funding Opportunity Announcement Number in GMAS

As we continue to leverage our proposal and award data to better understand the research enterprise, one proposal field in the Grants Management Application Suite (GMAS) makes a big difference: the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) number.

Including the FOA number in your GMAS request allows us to:

• Analyze success rates by opportunity – We can evaluate success rates by opportunity and adjust strategies accordingly.
• Identify trends over time – Tracking outcomes by FOA number helps us understand which mechanisms, sponsors, or program types our research community has the greatest success with – and areas of potential challenge.
• Provide better guidance – With stronger data, we can better understand our research enterprise and strengthen future submissions.
• Adhere to sponsor eligibility requirements – Many FOAs have specific and unusual compliance requirements, e.g. PI eligibility and limited submission funding opportunities.

What you can do:

• Always enter the FOA number in the designated field when creating your GMAS proposal request.
• Make sure the FOA number matches the sponsor’s listing exactly (no extra spaces or characters, please).
• When in doubt, double-check the FOA number on the sponsor’s official site before routing your request.

Taking an extra moment to capture the correct FOA number helps support comprehensive proposal review and builds more reliable, powerful data - ultimately supporting smarter decisions and stronger proposals across our research community.