About
Research support expertise
Arizona State University’s Advanced Capabilities for National Security Institute catalyzes defense and security research throughout the university — from building new sponsor relationships through project execution. As part of this mission, ACNSI offers targeted pre-award support for faculty and staff pursuing security-related research.
ACNSI has extensive experience with government and industry sponsors, particularly in the Department of War (DoW) and Intelligence Community (IC). ACNSI has helped create successful projects with federal DoW/IC/DHS sponsors, and has shepherded partnerships with national labs and research-centric industry partners.
$970M
Cumulative budgets at the end of FY24
81
ACNSI-managed submissions in FY24
19%
Increase in ASU HERD expenditures for DoW over the past 2 years
175+
ACNSI affiliates
ACNSI pre-award team key offerings
- Sponsor/funding opportunity identification and consultation
- Building relationships with sponsor program managers
- Administrative proposal management (e.g., proposal formatting and structural considerations, templates, guidelines)
- Parsing complex funding announcements for eligibility, required components, due dates, etc.
- Team meeting facilitation (e.g., kick-offs and post-submission retrospectives)
- Compile proposal components in collaboration with a Research Advancement Administrator (RA) to streamline submission process
- Liaison with financial and administrative contacts, both internal and external to ASU
- “Red team” review of final proposal (e.g., sponsor relevance, document design, funding announcement compliance)
Process
- Intake two-week rule
New requests for pre-award team management must be received no later that two weeks prior to the sponsor deadline. - Services offered
Please be aware that our team continually manages multiple complex proposals with overlapping deadlines. During peak workload times, we may only be able to offer select features of proposal management. - Proposal kick-off meeting
To ensure quality submissions, ACNSI holds kick-off meetings for all submissions that our team manages, with only rare exceptions. Please prepare for the Proposal Manager to ask for your availability and a list of attendees for the initial kick-off meeting. - Deadlines/proposal schedule
Thank you in advance for adhering to all deadlines suggested by the Proposal Manager. Our team is certified in proposal management industry best practices. The tools and templates we use are to ensure your submission is a success. - Red team review
A red team review of the technical narrative prior to submission to the sponsor is strongly encouraged in general. Any proposal that may have a classified component must be reviewed by or discussed with ACNSI’s Senior Director of Research Strategy prior to submission. - ACNSI pre-award intake form
Complete the proposal intake form to get started.
ACNSI pre-award intake form
Complete the proposal intake form to get started.
Calendar
| Date | Presenter | Presentation/Event Title | Event Info |
| 6 Feb 2026 | Kristina Nelson, Daniel Froid | Fulton Schools of Engineering: Intro to DoW Funding Workshop | see FSE newsletter |
| Oct 2025 | Kristina Nelson, Kaushik Balakrishnan | CLAS-GSI Department of War (DoW) Writing Cohort workshop series | by invitation |
| 8 July 2025 | Kristina Nelson, Christina Calio | AFOSR Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) and ONR Young Investigator Program (YIP) overview | Info |
| 1 Nov 2024 | Kristina Nelson, Sarai Alvarado, and Ted Senator | DoW Early Career Funding Opportunities | Info |
| Oct-Nov 2024 | Kristina Nelson | Fulton Schools of Engineering (FSE) new faculty Department of War Principal Investigator (PI) workshop series | by invitation |
| 09 Sep 2024 | Kristina Nelson, Kim Buchheit, Hayley Bohall, Quyen Wickham, Megan Blease, Kaushik Balakrishnan, and Terry Christenson | Early Career Funding Programs (Opportunity Kick-off) | Info |
| Mar-Apr 2024 | Kristina Nelson | The Polytechnic School (TPS) and School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks (MSN) new faculty Department of War Principal Investigator (PI) workshop series | by invitation |
Popular funding opportunities and resources
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA)
DoW Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI)
Office of Naval Research (ONR) Long Range BAA
ASU Pivot database
ASU KE Research Development
ASU Research Administration
Equipping investigators and research advancement teams with an array of information, documents, and tools.
People
Contact Us
Get in touch with the Advanced Capabilities for National Security Institute Initiative’s Sponsor Engagement and Proposal Support team, partner with us, and ask questions you may have about our resources and expertise at Arizona State University.