General Discussions

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

Hi Andrea,
Yes, there are many benefits of grants. The concept you are expressing is what I call salary savings, this is the amount of salary recovered for working on federal projects that the College/University would have otherwise paid.  Some institutions have a salary savings policy to not only track, but to also discuss how to use those salary savings.  My institution does track salary savings, however we do not have a policy on what should be done with those savings and typically just off-set individual departments salary expenses.

Not sure if this helps! 

------------------------------
Kris A. Monahan, Ph.D.
Director Sponsored Projects and Research Compliance
Providence College
Providence, RI
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

As Kris says, we at Ball State call it salary savings too. We don't track it centrally, and expect that the departments and colleges track it. However, that doesn't really happen, and we continue to struggle with how to capture it appropriately and give that back to the colleges.

Similarly, tuition remission and stipends for Graduate Assistantships has also been a struggle. I think there's a way to pull a report from our financial system that would be able to tell the information seeker what was externally funded v. internally funded.

I'd be interested to hear how others are tracking it if not just pulling central financial reports from awarded projects.

------------------------------
Augusta Isley
Senior Proposal Manager
Ball State University
amwray@bsu.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

We can't forget about F&A and how that pays the salary of (hopefully) quality Contract & Grant staff in the units!

------------------------------
Jonathan Lew
ERA Officer
University of California, Irvine
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

Not all RD/RA folks are paid from F&A, however. We're base-funded here (and at my last job as well).

If an institution participates in the HERD survey (and others from NCSES), there are tables available on your institutional profile (you can search for it here: Academic Institution Profiles) that will tell you, at least for STEM- and health-related fields, how many graduate students receive full support from federal sources, and another that will tease out all of the funding sources for grad student support. Here at OU in 2019 (the last year for which full data are publicly available on NCSES's site), we had 17 graduate students (out of 570 - so there's clearly some room for improvement for us in this regard) who were fully supported by federal dollars: 10 in science fields and 7 in engineering. We also had two graduate students with teaching assistantships that were funded by some non-federal grant source, and three federally supported postdocs. So that's a pretty substantial amount of funding that OU would otherwise have had to cover (or else to do without those students and postdocs).

------------------------------
Michael Spires
Research Development Officer
Oakland University
Rochester, MI
(he/him)
mspires@oakland.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-04-2022 15:14
From: Jonathan Lew
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

We can't forget about F&A and how that pays the salary of (hopefully) quality Contract & Grant staff in the units!

------------------------------
Jonathan Lew
ERA Officer
University of California, Irvine

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

Wow,  Andrea and Kris;

 You have started the New Year with a fantastic thread!

I know our university has struggled with tracking the value-added from grant funding for many years. I have been with BSU for over a decade now, and this question often comes up. As with many institutions, the priority of this question depends on the institution's strategic position at that particular time. 

When we are interested in tracking expenditures from research funding flow-throughs, we have set up FDCCs (Funding Departmental Charge Centers) in our enterprise financial systems. The FDCCs are assigned a queriable code to track all expenditures as research-related activities.

Similar to the process that Kris described, these FDCCs are set up as a flow-through from salary savings directly from grant-related activities, and the department units are incentivized through various mechanisms to utilize these funds in the interests of continuing our research mission. Such as matching funds for Graduate Research Assistantships, Fellowships, and Tuition support. Mini-grants are supported by internal funding and supplemented by our VPR. Other expenses include travel scholarships for Graduate students, faculty, and staff for professional development in research.

By being proactive and setting up the FDCC specific for the research expenditure activities in advance and promoting the use of these funds for research-related support, including the things listed above, we showed a significant portfolio of institutional support for the grant-related activity. Running a query for all coded accounts at the institutional level was easy. All FDCCs for research funding are coded to a uniform identifier, and we just used a SQL report.

Our institution does not have any policy to ensure that the flow-through funds are currently explicitly used for research-related purposes. The FDCCs were more closely restricted in their use in the past, but our current strategies have changed. I do not know what the future will bring.

I hope this answer is beneficial to the discussion. I look forward to additional comments or other processes that may have been used to facilitate research support in your areas.

-M 

------------------------------
Michelle Davis, M.Ed.
Research Administrator, Office of Research
College of Health Sciences, Boise State University
michelledavis3@boisestate.edu
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

There you go!  That's super helpful.  Obviously, I knew about salary savings and we already track that.  It's this other amorphous stuff I'm looking to keep an eye on.

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 01-04-2022 15:51
From: Michelle Davis
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

Wow,  Andrea and Kris;

 You have started the New Year with a fantastic thread!

I know our university has struggled with tracking the value-added from grant funding for many years. I have been with BSU for over a decade now, and this question often comes up. As with many institutions, the priority of this question depends on the institution's strategic position at that particular time. 

When we are interested in tracking expenditures from research funding flow-throughs, we have set up FDCCs (Funding Departmental Charge Centers) in our enterprise financial systems. The FDCCs are assigned a queriable code to track all expenditures as research-related activities.

Similar to the process that Kris described, these FDCCs are set up as a flow-through from salary savings directly from grant-related activities, and the department units are incentivized through various mechanisms to utilize these funds in the interests of continuing our research mission. Such as matching funds for Graduate Research Assistantships, Fellowships, and Tuition support. Mini-grants are supported by internal funding and supplemented by our VPR. Other expenses include travel scholarships for Graduate students, faculty, and staff for professional development in research.

By being proactive and setting up the FDCC specific for the research expenditure activities in advance and promoting the use of these funds for research-related support, including the things listed above, we showed a significant portfolio of institutional support for the grant-related activity. Running a query for all coded accounts at the institutional level was easy. All FDCCs for research funding are coded to a uniform identifier, and we just used a SQL report.

Our institution does not have any policy to ensure that the flow-through funds are currently explicitly used for research-related purposes. The FDCCs were more closely restricted in their use in the past, but our current strategies have changed. I do not know what the future will bring.

I hope this answer is beneficial to the discussion. I look forward to additional comments or other processes that may have been used to facilitate research support in your areas.

-M 

------------------------------
Michelle Davis, M.Ed.
Research Administrator, Office of Research
College of Health Sciences, Boise State University
michelledavis3@boisestate.edu

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------

This is my first post in this platform and I offer these thoughts with some trepidation.  I am counting on your patience and grace.  My job now is research administration but much of my career has been as a faculty member and then in the dean's office charged with faculty development and enhancing research productivity.  I'm in a PUI now and the first question from the CFO when I interviewed here was "How would you distribute recovered F&A?"  My response was "With all respect, you don't have enough recovered F&A for us to even bother with that conversation."  So . . . tact is not my gift and they hired me anyway.  I guess desperation lowers bars.   I went on to point out that grants lose money and her next question was "So why are we pursuing grants?"

My somewhat jaded response would have been to point her to the works of Leslie Slaughter, Gary Rhoades, and Larry Leslie . .  the whole idea of academic capitalism and the inherent lie that model presents for the non-elites.  Theresa Ochs-Rosinger brought a nice angle building out of Slaughter's work arguing that universities are "prestige maximizers" with external funding being used as objective evidence of their status as an academic entity.

I get all of the economics and choose not to do a lecture on academic capitalism.  Rather, I have encouraged a view of research (funded or unfunded) as a societal commitment that should be pursued in the context of institutional identity/mission.  So, besides being tactless on occasion I get beat up for being a bit idealistic.  Here is a more pragmatic reason for the non-elites to pursue research including sponsored programs: faculty recruitment and faculty retention.  Research several years back focused on professionalism and professional identity (I'm sorry, the reference escapes me just now) pointed out that faculty professional loyalties generally fall in the following order: 1) Department, 2) Profession/Discipline, 3) College/University.

Doctoral students are raised in an environment in which their professional identity begins to be developed in the context of that departmental culture.  Research (creative acts for others) is a critical piece of professional identity for youngsters in particular.  They come out looking for a place to continue to build their identity, and in many cases their status, in their discipline/profession.  Research (in the very global Boyer sense) is how that happens.  Showing youngsters that they have the ability to engage in those activities associated with professional identity with institutional support is critical not only in competing effectively for them, but then retaining them.  Circling back to the first question, here is my spin: grants help mitigate the cost of supporting cost of recruiting and retaining scholars while also tending to support public perceptions of the quality of the institution.

So . . . sometimes I also tend to the wordy.  Sorry, but I hope maybe raises new questions/thoughts.

------------------------------
William Siler
Director of Sponsored Programs
Lewis University
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 12-23-2021 10:46
From: Andrea Buford
Subject: What's grant funding FOR, anyway?

OK, first off.... no one read this question until winter break is over ;)  I'm just leaving it here to get the question out there before I forget.

And secondly, I really do know what grant funding is for ;)

But here's the thing.  We all know that we lose money on grant funding, on some purely spreadsheet level.  Everyone does.  We pursue it for all kinds of OTHER reasons, but fiscal prudence is not, really, one of them.  Those reason are good.

And yet, grant funding does two things.  For example, sometimes it allows the university to purchase really expensive equipment - which could, in its turn, allow the university to attract more prestigious faculty and to develop important centers of excellence.  It lets us have things we might not otherwise have. Great, grants enhance the research environment and infrastructure.  I know when that happens and how to track expenditures that look like that.  In other cases, it has a benefit I'm just now trying to tease out; grants can provide cash-flow relief, it seems to me.   A faculty member's salary is a routine expense, of course, but if the grant is paying for a portion of it through course release, then that money (after paying the relief-teacher) becomes available for other purposes.  Similarly with graduate students - although they are really in both categories.  With grants, we can have more grad students on stipend and tuition remision than we might otherwise be able to afford, AND grants could be seen as providing cash-flow relief.

Are other institutions tracking this?  Do you have a better way of expressing what I'm trying to get at?  What cost-categories would go into this tracking?  Post-docs, for us, yes.  Travel, probably not, I'm thinking.

Anyway, I'll wait until January to read the wisdom of the sages.

Happy and gentle holidays to all of you,

A

------------------------------
Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
------------------------------