AI for grant writing and research administration
Ultramarine Work reads the NOFO, your program data, biosketches and ledger exports in the project folder, then drafts the checklist, budget, narrative or report and notes anything it cannot find or reconcile.
Subrecipient-desk-review-Q3.xlsxExample| Subrecipient | Claimed | Budget YTD | Questioned | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastside Youth Services | 48,920 | 51,250 | 0 | Costs agree to the ledger, payroll register and receipts. |
| Northline Family Clinic | 36,480 | 37,500 | 1,215 | A staff holiday lunch is entertainment under 2 CFR 200.438. |
| Harbor Literacy Project | 21,940 | 22,500 | 0 | Costs agree to receipts and the approved budget lines. |
| Total | 107,340 | 111,250 | 1,215 | One cost is questioned across three subrecipients. |
NoteDisallow the $1,215 holiday lunch and ask Northline for a revised Q3 invoice of $35,265.
Ask it for
“Read this 90-page NOFO and build the application checklist: every attachment, page limit, deadline and review criterion, and where our draft falls short.”
NOFO-26-1187-checklist.xlsx“Budget the three-year literacy proposal at $214,500 a year, with fringe at 32% and indirect at the 15% de minimis rate. Write the justification for each line.”
Literacy-budget-justification.xlsx“Turn our intake notes and service counts into a needs statement and program description for the county housing services LOI.”
LOI-housing-services.docx“Make a logic model and evaluation plan for the family literacy grant, using the funder’s own definition of an unduplicated count for every indicator.”
Family-literacy-evaluation-plan.docx“Cross-check Dr. Rosales’s draft other support against her biosketch and the new R01 aims, and flag any overlap or missing in-kind resources.”
Rosales-other-support-check.pdf“Desk-review the three subrecipients’ Q3 invoices against their budgets and the 2 CFR 200 cost principles, and list the questioned costs.”
Subrecipient-desk-review-Q3.xlsx
Inside the Grants & Sponsored Programs mode
Research grant proposal
Critiques an R01 draft against the announcement and the reviewers’ criteria, and points out the sections where the aims claim more than the evidence supports.
Program grant proposal
Turns program notes, service counts and last year’s report into an LOI, program narrative or funder report in the format your past applications use.
Grant budget and justification
Builds the budget by year and category, with the fringe, cost share and indirect calculation worked in and each line tested for 2 CFR 200 allowability.
Biosketch and current pending
Lays out biosketches and other support in the SciENcv common forms and finds the scientific, budgetary and effort overlaps the agency requires you to resolve.
Program evaluation
Drafts logic models with indicators worded to the funder’s own definitions, and keeps the duplicated and unduplicated counts apart.
Grant compliance and monitoring
Prepares subrecipient risk assessments, desk review findings and sampled cost checks, and documents the monitoring trail auditors ask for.
Grant financial management
Reconciles budget to actual by award and tests cost transfers and effort against the award terms. The SF-425 figures come with their sources.
IRB submissions and informed consent
Pre-checks applications and consent forms for the required elements of consent and drafts the key information section in plain language.
Clinical trial budget and coverage analysis
Splits the protocol’s schedule of events into routine and research costs under NCD 310.1 and drafts the budget and billing grid for CTA negotiation.
Contract drafting and redlining
A sponsor’s CTA or subaward draft comes back marked up, with the counterparty’s language quoted and the issues list ready for the negotiation.
- Office skills
- Excel, Word, PowerPoint, PDF
- Tools
- Read, edit and write files, Search files, Run code, Search and read the web, View images
- Connectors
- SharePoint, Google Drive, Gmail, and additional custom connectors
- House style
- Your fonts, layouts and rules, on every file
How it works
- 1
Fill the grants folder
The NOFO, prior applications and reports, program data and attendance sheets, biosketch files, ledger exports, subrecipient invoices and the sponsor’s draft budget all go in, filed the way your office already keeps them.
- 2
Ask for the piece you need
Name a compliance checklist keyed to the NOFO, a budget with justifications, a logic model, a draft report or a monitoring plan. Workbooks come back with live formulas, and every deliverable carries a list of anything missing.
- 3
Review, then decide
Each claim cites its file, and anything that failed to reconcile lands on the same list. The writer checks every number, the PI certifies originality, and your office routes, submits, manages and reports the award.
Who it’s for
Grant writers, grants managers and coordinators, and pre-award, post-award and clinical trial office research administrators in nonprofits, universities, hospitals, school districts and local governments, on the applicant and recipient side.
Questions
Can I use AI on an NIH application?
Yes, for limited aspects, as long as the ideas remain the team’s own. NIH notice NOT-OD-25-132 says applications, or sections of them, that are substantially developed by AI are not original ideas of applicants. The notice also names plagiarism and fabricated citations as risks that can trigger research misconduct review. Ultramarine Work drafts from the files you give it, and the investigator and writer rewrite the narrative before the PI certifies what goes in.
Do we have to tell funders we used AI?
It depends on the funder, so read the instructions before you write a word. NEH requires a footnote wherever AI-generated text was inserted and can declare an application ineligible without one. Some government funders ask you to disclose how the AI was used, and many smaller foundations say nothing. Keep your own record of which tool you used, what you used it for and who approved the final text, and ask the program officer when the guidance is unclear.
Will it invent statistics or citations for our proposals?
Its skills tell it to show where every number and statement came from, and to note what it could not find or reconcile instead of guessing. That is a drafting discipline, not a guarantee, so the writer verifies each statistic and citation against its source before the proposal goes out. One invented statistic in a needs statement costs a reviewer’s trust in everything else.
Who decides if a cost is allowable or a procedure is routine?
You do, or your compliance officer or coverage analyst does, on the facts Ultramarine Work assembles. It lays out the schedule of events, compares the budget against 2 CFR 200 and the award terms, and lists the costs it questions. The allowability and billing determinations, and the prior approvals that follow them, belong to your institution.
Where does our data go?
Ultramarine Work changes files only in the project’s folder. When a request needs it, it can read files elsewhere on your computer, never passwords, keys or app data, and you can turn that off in settings. The model runs on Paper Instruments’ servers, so the content it works on is sent there to be processed. Paper Instruments is SOC 2 Type II, and our security and compliance details are on our compliance page.