Requesting Personnel Costs on Sponsored Projects

Personnel time is a major cost of doing research and other sponsored activity at the university.  Whenever allowed by the sponsor, funding for faculty time, regardless of type of appointment, should be requested in proportion to time committed to that project. 

If funding for faculty time will not be requested, it is important to avoid quantification of the time commitment anywhere in the proposal going to the sponsor.  This includes the budget, budget justification, project narrative, current & pending section, etc.  An example of wording for budget justifications is, “The PI will devote the time necessary to complete the project objectives.”  This is considered uncommitted cost share and is not required to be tracked or reported.

Quantified time committed to work on a sponsored project that is not compensated by the sponsor is considered committed cost share.  All committed cost share must be specifically approved in NuRamp in advance by the department and college before offering to a sponsor.  This requires calculating the cost of the time commitment plus benefits and putting that dollar amount into a cost share approval route.  If a proposal with such commitments is funded, the cost shared time must be tracked and reported through PVS.