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Investigator time

Estimating Time

With the introduction of fEC, investigators time is an allowable cost on Research Council and other research projects. As a result, investigators are required to estimate the time they spend on all research projects for which they bid. Costs are charged to projects based on this estimated time.

Guidance for investigators

This is applicable to all contracts regardless of sponsor.

All investigators should estimate the time they think they will spend over the life of a project in hours. The time estimated should be total time and need not be profiled across the life of the project (although it can be if the time spent on the project will vary significantly during different phases of the project).

All direct research time such as project management time, supervision of research assistants, time spent preparing and presenting conference papers, writing project reports and papers should be included.

Time spent training and supervising postgraduate research students funded by the project should be included if sponsor rules allow. Research Councils and government departments will not fund supervision time. Commercial sponsors will.

Time should be the time of the staff carrying out the work on the project and not that for replacement teaching.

Time spent preparing the grant application should not be included.

The average number of hours to be spent each week on the project should be estimated. This should take account of the relative demands of the project on the academics time such as whether they are principal or co-investigator; the number and experience and number of the research assistants, the number of investigators, the number of reports to be written, the sponsors administrative requirements, previous experience with this type of project and the techniques involved. A further allowance should be made for writing up at the end.

Time available to work across the year is adjusted to account for bank holidays and time spent on leave. For the purposes of fEC, we work based on 7.5 hours a day and 37.5 hours per week. Working time per year is as follows:

To aid with estimating costs for academic time on grant proposals, a PI Time Calculator will help give an indication of how much time will be spent on research as well as researcher and project management which can then be discussed with your Research Development Manager to review and generate a cost for the time.

Commitment of time

It is a requirement that institutions should ensure that PIs do not charge more than 1650 hours per annum to publicly funded (research council and government e.g Innovate) projects. A record of PI and Co-PI hours is recorded centrally. These are reviewed periodically to ensure no PI is overcommitted.

Verification of Investigator Time

As investigator costs are based on estimated time rather than actual time, the Research Councils require that the PI confirms (or otherwise) that broadly, the amount of time estimated at the start of the project is likely to have been spent, and will be spent, by the staff on the project. Broadly means cumulative over the project so far, with reasonable assumptions as to future work on the project, plus or minus 20%.

At the start of each new Research Council project PIs are sent a proforma indicating hours awarded. PIs are asked to return and sign with any amendments at the end of the project. Further information is available from your Research Accountant.

The records that should be kept will depend on the sponsor. For example, EU projects require time sheets. For Research Council projects timesheets or other formal records of time spend are definitely not required. However, PIs should be able to produce Evidence of time spent on the project such as paper-based diary entries, records of meetings, volume/quality of outputs, laboratory notes. It is suggested that good practice would be for the PI to keep simple records in a desk diary of the significant inputs made to the project. It is events rather than individual hours that need to be recorded.

Directly incurred staff

Directly incurred staff are staff that are dedicated wholly or in part to the projects. Costs must be based on actual rather than estimated time spent. This would normally be staff whose salaries are coded to the project via the payroll such as postdoctoral research assistants or technicians (see guidance on technicians under Useful Information).

REIO will be able to provide salary costs for any directly incurred staff to be employed on the grant.

Travel and subsistence

This includes all travel for the project including fieldwork, conferences and visits to collaborators. Travel costs should include transportation (airfare, train tickets, mileage) transfers, accommodation and subsistence costs. Please refer to the University Expenses Policy for guidance on travel bookings and subsistence rates.

Also consider any visa costs necessary for overseas travel.

Other directly incurred costs

This includes any other costs needed to complete the project, for example consumables, laptops and peripherals, transcription, participant costs, software licences, hosting workshops, access fees. Please ensure that you read the call guidance thoroughly, as different funders have different rules on which of these costs are eligible.

Equipment

This includes all costs for the project relating to the purchase of significant items of equipment.  Further guidance on what the costs involved are for purchasing equipment can be found on the Equipment page for projects.

Facilities

The University has a number of major facilities that we can charge to research grants. These are included as directly incurred costs and we have official rates that must be used that are updated annually in February.

In order to include costs for these facilities, you must contact the facility owner in advance to discuss your requirements (apart from the Research Cloud).