Improving research overhead recovery

by David Boxer

An additional £120m of Government funding has been given to Research Councils to fund the full economic costs of research grants awarded by them. To make sure we get our share of this funding the Transparency Review project must be robustly implemented to the point where we can identify the full economic costs of research activities.

As part of the above sector-wide mandatory project the University is required to undertake a time collection exercise involving SHEFC/SE-funded academic staff every three years. The time period selected for this year’s exercise runs from 1 June 2004 to 31 May 2005.

If you fall into this category of staff you will be asked to retrospectively complete three Time Allocation Schedules (TAS) during the year. To complete the schedules you will split your time between teaching, research, other and support activities.

The first TAS will be sent to you in September 2004 and will cover the period 1 June 2004 to 30 September 2004.

It is important that this University achieves a high response rate from academics whether T or R intensive to the time collection exercise as the consequences of not doing so could be a significant reduction in the costs recovered from research grants.

More information on the above exercise and how the project has evolved into a new method of costing research grants applications can be found at: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/finance/