Part V - TRAC fEC

Section C: Estimating researcher costs

Chapter C.2 Their time

1. The time for all of these academic and research staff should be estimated and entered on the project-costing schedule.
2. An exception to this should be made for Fellows and Research Assistants whose time or salary has already been wholly (100%) included in a previous single separate fellowship or project grant provided by a Research Council, Other Government Department (OGD), or charity
   • the time or salaries of these Fellows or RAs should not then be included in the fEC of a subsequent research project. This is irrespective of the amount actually funded on that initial fellowship or project grant. They should, however, still be named on any research project on which they subsequently work;
   • however, if their original grant will have expired by the time the new project commences, then their time and salaries should be included in the new project costs;
   • all of the time of Fellows and Research Assistants whose time on Teaching and Support has been included on the fEC of a research project should be allocated to Research, and not to Teaching or Support:
     • as part of the annual TRAC time allocation process; and
     • when FTE numbers are being established for use as a cost driver or as a denominator in the indirect cost rates.
3. However, the time that a Research Fellow or Research Assistant will be spending on a new project (and a proportionate part of their whole salary) should be included on that project where:
   • the first fellowship/project has expired; or
   • their initial fellowship grant, or other project grant, was charged with less than 100% of the Fellow or RA’s time, and the new project is outside the aim of the original fellowship.
4. Where an institution has to make a contribution to salary costs to a researcher (a ‘top-up’ to a Research Fellow’s salary, for example) they should consider whether it is appropriate to charge all of the researcher’s salary and time to that original fellowship project. This may not be appropriate if it is expected that the researcher will work on other research projects that are out-with the scope of the original fellowship (a notional estimate of time could be linked to the value of the top-up and excluded from the charges made to the original fellowship project).
5. The Teaching and Support duties of a Research Fellow and Research Assistant are usually within the scope of their research projects. The time that they expect to spend on these should remain part of the fEC for those research projects.
6. Time for all other academic staff should be included, irrespective of how they are funded. This means, for example, that the time of staff funded through university trust funds, general endowments, etc., should be included on project applications. The time of individuals who are not paid through the institution (e.g. visiting professors from industry) should be included. All hours should be included, irrespective of when the work will be done (this would include any time formally or informally acknowledged in some way as overtime).
7. Academics’ time should include all the direct time required to manage the project, undertake the work and supervise the project staff. It should not include any activity that is categorised by TRAC as Support.
8. It should not include the time spent in training or supervising of research students – see supervising PGRs.
9. The time should be that for the staff carrying out the work, and it should be costed as such, irrespective of any previous practice by sponsors to fund other costs (e.g. replacement teaching costs which are unlikely to be a reasonable proxy for the real costs).
10. Investigators can estimate their time in a number of ways – three examples are (a) a month-by-month build up of time, or (b) estimating the number of hours on average across a year; or (c) using a proxy of hours per week per RA, plus time at the end for writing up. Guidance on this is given in Annex 20.
11. The techniques and estimates used in estimating time should be reviewed by the institution in year three of TRAC fEC implementation (2006/07) to ensure that the results are a fair and reasonable estimate of the actual time likely to be taken. By 2007 they need to improve the robustness of these estimates. The first (a) represents the most robust method.
12. The time should be based on the actual hours required to work on the project, (irrespective of the total hours worked in a week). Over-charging of salary costs is avoided through a number of measures, covered in Chapter C.4 below.