What does a analysis grant pay for?

4/9/2023

Till I wrote my first grant proposal, I knew little or no about what a federal analysis grant pays for.

I will share what my grants coated and the reasoning behind it. Observe: I used to be a pc science professor researching software program engineering at a big state college within the US, primarily funded by the Nationwide Science Basis (NSF).

TLDR: Every of my grant budgets included the college’s reduce, a fraction of a month of wage for me per 12 months, a graduate pupil, convention journey for each of us, and a really small quantity to conduct person research. This quantities to a bit underneath $100,000 per 12 months per grant.

I will go into element of every of the next:

• The college’s reduce
• My summer time wage
• Graduate college students
• Journey
• Different: gear, undergrads, person research

The college’s reduce

Individuals appear shocked to search out out that the college takes a portion of each grant, and much more so after they hear the proportion that they take.

For each $1 I budgeted for my analysis, I needed to account for an further $0.53 that will go to the college. Universities have a pre-specified proportion for overhead (additionally referred to as amenities and administrative (F&A) prices or oblique prices). Tools and tuition are excluded from the overhead calculation. It supposedly covers issues like having a constructing to work in, electrical energy, fundamental pc gear, and assist employees. It’s break up amongst the college, faculty, and division. These F&A charges appear to solely ever go up…

A really small quantity of this cash will typically trickle again all the way down to the researcher.

To place it in perspective, my final grant was $481,112 of which $139,022 was budgeted to go to the college for overhead.

My summer time wage

Sure, professors get to pocket a few of their grants! Although that’s as a result of they’re typically solely assured 9 months of wage regardless of working the complete 12 months.

It’s typical to pay your self 0.5 to 1 month of wage per grant. Particularly, my three NSF grants coated 0.55, 0.75, and 1.0 months of my wage for annually. I discovered it humorous that my faculty factored in annual raises into the price range that had been at all times far increased than I truly obtained.

A really traumatic a part of school life was understanding that my annual compensation was about to take a nostril dive if I do not get one other grant.

Extra grants is usually higher, although there are restrictions in your wage. Most notably, the NSF restricts you to 2 months of wage from your whole energetic NSF grants at any given time. Even if in case you have different funding sources, you possibly can’t have greater than 12 months of wage.

What do you do if you happen to’re swimming in funding then? You should buy out of instructing. You successfully pay for the price of an adjunct to take your instructing load.

Graduate college students

The biggest part of my grants was supporting a graduate pupil. They’re those doing the majority of the each day work. It consists of their wage ($2200 a month), tuition ($15,000 a 12 months), and advantages ($200 a month). Roughly $233,000 of $481,112 from my final grant was for a graduate pupil for five years.

There are methods to stretch this additional. For instance, a lot of my graduate college students additionally labored as instructing assistants through the college 12 months which coated their tuition, advantages, and a portion of their wage, so I simply needed to pay the distinction in wage. Although it did eat a nontrivial quantity of their time and a spotlight. Furthermore, my graduate college students typically gained fellowships/scholarships that boosted their wage to a extra sustainable wage.

Journey

In pc science, conferences are an important option to community and share analysis. It’s also typically required as soon as a paper has been accepted for publication, so I price range for one journey per 12 months for each myself and a graduate pupil. I budgeted for alternating between home and worldwide journey each different 12 months. One thing like $2300 for home per individual and $3300 for worldwide per individual. It covers airfare, meals, convention registration (foolish costly!), and lodge.

Different

The one different price I included had been incentive funds to contributors in our person research, which had been fairly small: $600ish per 12 months to pay 15 contributors.

It’s also frequent to price range for undergraduate researchers as hourly workers. The NSF makes it straightforward to add-on to grants for this later by “NSF REU Dietary supplements”. I employed many undergrads, although I at all times used my startup fund.

What about gear? Contemplating I work in software program, all I or my college students ever actually wanted had been simply typical computer systems so my gear price range was $0. The NSF expects such gear to be coated by the F&A prices. It’s common for researchers in different different fields to price range for costly, specialised gear although.

If you happen to do not spend the cash, it goes again to the federal government. You’ll be able to request a “no-cost extension” from the NSF that appears to be robotically accredited (a minimum of the primary time) that offers you an extra 12 months to wrap issues up. I did this. You even have some wiggle room to maneuver funds between the budgeted classes which I put unneeded stress on myself to not do.

My budgets are in all probability so simple as they get. They actually aren’t obscure when you be taught the jargon.

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