Category / Guidance

fEC step by step guide to costing! ~ Step 4 Estate and Indirect costs

Guidance

This week is fEC week on the Blog! Each day we will be explaining a different element of fEC as a quick reference guide to help you prepare the budgets for your research proposals. Today’s focus is on estate and indirect costs.

See Friday’s blog post (Introduction to full economic costing) for an explanation of what fEC actually is and why we use it to cost projects.

Step 4 – Estate and Indirect costs

There are some major items of expenditure in support of research activities made both by the School and centrally by the University. These costs are important as they ensure that the University has a well-maintained infrastructure and administrative support to enable research and enterprise activities to be carried out. Under fEC these are termed estate costs and indirect costs.

Estate and indirect cost charges replace the previous ‘overhead’ charge that was applied to research projects. Whereas the overhead was a fairly arbitrary charge, the estate and indirect costs are true costs that the University is incurring and are based on the expenditure contained within the audited annual accounts.

The calculation of estate and indirect costs is a mandatory requirement for all UK HEIs, and is done using the same methodology in each institution. The costs that are calculated will be different, but they will have been calculated in a standardised and consistent way.

Estate costs – these provide a share of the cost of providing the physical infrastructure for research, and are calculated by each HEI using its own cost rates.

Indirect costs – these are non-specific costs charged across all projects based on estimates that are not otherwise included as directly allocated costs. Examples of costs included in the indirect cost charge are:

  • academic support time not spent on teaching, research or other (as defined by TRAC)
  • clerical and technical staff costs
  • non-staff costs in academic departments
  • staff and non-staff costs in central service departments
  • gross cost of capital employed (i.e. restructuring and interest costs and the net COCE)

Estates and indirect costs are driven by the academic/research FTE allocated to the project and will be calculated by the CRE Operations team as part of the costing.

See tomorrow’s blog post on exceptional costs for the final exciting installment of fEC!

fEC step by step guide to costing! ~ Step 3 Directly Allocated costs

Guidance

This week is fEC week on the Blog! Each day we will be explaining a different element of fEC as a quick reference guide to help you prepare the budgets for your research proposals. Today’s focus is on Directly Allocated costs.

See Friday’s blog post (Introduction to full economic costing) for an explanation of what fEC actually is and why we use it.

Step 3 – Directly Allocated (DA) costs

Directly allocated (DA) costs are the costs of resources on a project where the same resources are shared by other activities and projects. Directly allocated costs are different to directly incurred costs because the costs are not exclusively related to any one individual project.

DA costs are charged to the project based upon an estimate, rather than actual cash values.

Examples of DA costs include:

  • Principal Investigator (PI) and co-Investigator (Co-I) salary costs
  • Estates costs

Investigator salary costs – yesterdays fEC post explained how to estimate the time that the PI and Co-Is will need to spend on the project in terms of average hours per week. This will now need to be used to calculate the salary cost of each of the Investigators on the project.

You will need to know, for each Investigator, the average hours per week they will devote to the project and the CRE Operations team will then use BU’s costing software to apply these hours to the appropriate salary banding in order to calculate a project salary cost for each Investigator.

Please note that if you have an investigator who is going to be 100% funded from the project (such as Research Fellowships) then this cost should be included as directly incurred, as these staff will need to be charged as actual costs to the project. 

Estate costs – these are a directly allocated cost but will be included in tomorrow’s post as the process for calculating estates and indirect costs is the same.

See tomorrow’s blog post on indirect costs for the next exciting installment of fEC!

fEC step by step guide to costing! ~ Step 2 Estimating staff time

Guidance

This week is fEC week on the Blog! Each day we will be explaining a different element of fEC as a quick reference guide to help you prepare the budgets for your research proposals. Today’s focus is on estimating staff time.

See Friday’s blog post (Introduction to full economic costing) for an explanation of what fEC actually is and why we use it to cost projects.

Step 2 – Estimating staff time

A key resource in the delivery of any project is academic staff time. All projects will have a Principal Investigator (PI) and some may also have Co-Investigators (Co-Is). PIs and Co-Is are the core academic staff who probably also spend time working on other research/enterprise projects as well as having other duties, including teaching and administration.

Academic staff are required to estimate how much time they think they will need to spend on a particular project. Below is a suggested approach as to how this could be done by taking into account three considerations: i) time available to do new research/enterprise, ii) project tasks, and iii) what to include and what to exclude. Considering these three things should help to produce an estimate of the average number of hours per week over the life of the project that could be spent on the project in question.

Academic staff will generally not have to keep detailed formal records to verify this, but will have to be able to:

  • justify this as a reasonable estimate of the effort required to deliver a particular project
  • produce some evidence of time spent on the project at the end of the project, e.g. lab notes, minutes of project meetings etc

Some funders (such as the EU) require more detailed documentation to justify the amount of time spent on a project; this can include keeping accurate timesheets showing time spent working on the project and the tasks that were undertaken. Where necessary, the CRE Operations team will advise as to the exact requirements. 

Time available to undertake new research – It is worth considering the amount of time already committed to teaching activities, management/administrative duties and other research/enterprise projects. 

Project tasks – The second consideration is the factors that are likely to affect how much time a particular project may require. Projects differ in terms of scale and complexity and have varying requirements for the amount of academic time needed. The following factors might be worth considering, but this is not an exhaustive list as each project will differ:

Research project tasks Factors likely to affect this
Establish methodology, approach, technique What is PI’s experience?How well understood is the area?
Assemble project team / plan / coordination of team meetings How many PI/COI?How many collaborating partners?

Frequency of meetings
Fieldwork, Laboratory, Studio What is PI’s experience?How well understood is the area?

How accessible is the location?

Recruitment of sample/research subjects
Report writing (initial, progress, final) How demanding is the funder?How many words is each report?
Conference attendance / dissemination activities How large scale is the planned activity?Where are the conference held?

What to include / exclude – Under fEC methodology, certain activities be included whilst others can’t.

Include:

  • Write-up time for reports and dissemination activities
  • Direct time required to manage the project, undertake the work and supervise any project staff

Exclude:

  • Bid preparation time
  • Postgraduate research student supervision (if applicable)
  • General administrative duties not directly related to the project 

Time estimate – The PI should now be in a position to confidently estimate the amount of time which will be spent by staff on the project.

You can use the BU estimating staff time spreadsheet as a rough guide to calculate time available to undertake new research and enterprise activity.

See tomorrow’s blog post on Directly Allocated (DA) costs for the next exciting installment of fEC!

fEC step by step guide to costing! ~ Step 1 Directly Incurred costs

Guidance

This week is fEC week on the Blog! Each day we will be explaining a different element of fEC as a quick reference guide to help you prepare the budgets for your research proposals. Today’s focus is on Directly Incurred costs.

See Friday’s blog post (Introduction to full economic costing) for an explanation of what fEC actually is and why we use it to cost projects.

Step 1 – Directly incurred (DI) costs

Directly incurred (DI) costs are items or services which are incurred or purchased specifically for a project. Costs are charged to projects on actual cash value and are auditable in the financial accounts (e.g. supported by a supplier invoice). If the project didn’t go ahead then these costs would almost certainly not be incurred.

Care should be taken when identifying costs for inclusion as some costs, such as telephone, photocopying or stationery, will already be covered by the indirect cost charge. The CRE Operations team will be able to advise you on this.

You should consider whether the project requires the following DI costs:

  • Fixed-term project staff (research assistants, research fellows, dedicated technicians or administrators)
  • Travel, subsistence and conferences
  • Equipment and consumables (purchased specifically for project)
  • External consultancy fees

See tomorrow’s blog post on estimating staff time for the next exciting installment of fEC!

fEC week on the Blog! Introduction to full economic costing

Guidance

Next week is fEC week on the Blog! Each day we will be explaining a different element of fEC as a quick reference guide to help you prepare the budgets for your research proposals.

What is fEC? – Full Economic Costing (fEC) is a standardised method of calculating the actual costs of an activity which was developed in response to the funding councils’ ‘Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC)’ methodology with the aim of increasing funding whilst making HEIs responsible for their own financial stability. TRAC data indicated that publicly-funded research in particular was significantly under-funded as the true costs of running the activity were not being adequately identifed or subsequently reimbursed. fEC was introduced for all UK HEIs in September 2005, with the first fEC grants being awarded from April 2006.

In essence, fEC is a national, standardised costing method that provides a forecast of the full cost of undertaking a research project.

How do I calculate the fEC? – All bids at BU must be costed in accordance with the principles of fEC by the CRE Operations team using BU’s costing software. Everything must be costed and cross-checked against the funding body’s guidelines. You must ensure all costs are included at this stage as funders will not make up a shortfall after money has been awarded, but ensure costings are realistic and offer good value for money as most funders require a full justification of the requested resources.

How do I price the work? – After completing your costing you will need to establish what funding is available, i.e. the price, and consider how this compares to the cost (fEC recovery). The majority of research funders have set guidelines stating how much of the Full Economic Cost (fEC) they will fund or whch elements of the costing they will fund. However, where the funder/client does not have guidelines on this then a decision needs to be made of how to price the work to be undertaken. Pricing should be considered carefully and discussions should take place after the fEC has been calculated. Pricing decisions should always be discussed with your Deputy Dean (Research & Enterprise ), Dean and/or Director of Operations prior to quoting a price to the client. Pricing for contract research and enterprise should be carefully considered to ensure that ‘pricing precedents’ are not established with a particular funder.

  • Research Councils and NHS 80%
  • Charities averaging around 50%
  • EU around 75%
  • Industry 100%

The rate for commercial work varies but BU aims to recover 110% fEC across the whole Research & Enterprise portfolio. Therefore surpluses must be achieved where possible (i.e. over 110% fEC) to cover the deficit made by research (typically 80% fEC and lower).

Creative Commons – how copyright, content sharing and collaboration can lead innovation in the digital age

Guidance

open access logo, Public Library of Science

Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. They believe that academic research, journals, and data should be available to everyone, and are one of the leading organisations in the Open Access movement which is making scholarly research and journals more widely available on the internet. The world’s largest Open Access publishers all use Creative Commons licenses to publish their content online. Today, 10% of the world’s entire output of scholarly journals is Creative Commons licensed.

A new book ‘The Power of Open‘ (published by Creative Commons and available to download from the link) contains many examples of projects and individuals from around the world whose work has been brought to a wider audience.

Mark Patterson, Director of Publishing frm the European Office of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), states: ‘Open access is increasingly recognised as a driver of innovation and economic development, which is why it is essential that all publicly-funded research is made available without any access or reuse restrictions.’

Many research funding bodies now have open access mandates and a list of these requirements is kept up to data as part of the Sherpa-Juliet project. The European Commission, for example, introduced an open access pilot mandate in 2008 which required that the published results of European-funded research in certain areas be made openly available. This pilot policy will soon be extended to all EU-funded research. 

To promote the benefits of open access publishing and to support academic staff making their work freely available, BU has recently launched a dedicated Open Access Publication Fund. Find out more about this fund here:

To find out more about open access publishing and opportunities available for reaching a larger audience with your research, come to:

BU’s Open Access launch event on 26 October!

 

BU’s keywords for research – is everything included? Part 2

Guidance

A couple of weeks ago I added version 3 of the BU research ontology to the blog and asked for your advice as to whether this adequately reflected the breadth of your disciplines and expertise (see BU’s keywords for research – is everything included?). Thank you to everyone who responded to this – all of your comments and suggestions have been incorporated into version 4.

Rather than using the rigid 3-level structure, Version 4 includes the first attempt of mapping the keywords to the four broad areas of:

  • Business & Management
  • Media & Culture
  • Health & Society
  • Science & Technology

These areas will then map to the 8 emerging BU research themes. The aim of this is to provide a more flexible ontology that is adaptable to the complexities of inter- and multi-disciplinary research and that can be used to make relationships between people and disciplines (and therefore news stories, projects, outputs, etc) internally and also via the new external research webpages.

You can access Version 4 here: Research ontology v4

We’re very interested in your feedback as to whether the mapping in Version 4 is fit for purpose or whether any changes need to be made. Please add your comments to this post by Friday 2 September 🙂

Thanks to Katarzyna Musial for her help in visualising how this could work.

ESRC Future Research Leaders scheme – internal application information

Funding opportunities, Guidance

ESRC logoThe ESRC’s Future Research Leaders call is currently open with a closing date of 15 September 2011.

Universities are expected to consider applications very carefully prior to submitting them to the ESRC through this call, and all applications need to be supported with a letter from the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation).

With this in mind BU has established a process for submissions to this call. All proposals must be submitted to a special version of our internal peer review scheme (the RPRS) first and must be signed off by Matthew Bennett as PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) prior to submission.

For applicants interested in the scheme, the key internal dates are as follows:

22 Aug Proposals to be submitted to the RPRS and sent for review.
29 Aug Proposal feedback to be returned to applicants.
29 Aug – 5 Sep Applicants to finalise proposals based on reviewer feedback.
5 Sep Final proposals to be sent to Matthew Bennett (via CRE Operations).
5 Sep – 15 Sep Matthew Bennett to review and approve final proposals (and write the PVC letter of support). Once reviewed, CRE Operations will let applicants know when to submit via Je-S.
15 Sep ESRC submission deadline.

For further information on the RPRS please see the RPRS website: http://erss.bournemouth.ac.uk/researchsupport/bids/writing/rprs.html

If you are considering applying to the scheme but have not yet confirmed this with the CRE Operations team please could you do so as soon as possible.

Do you want to engage with BRIAN? Or are you more partial to a bit of BROS?

Guidance

Maybe you see Megalith as the towering winner, or you think BRAIN is the cleverest suggestion? Or is it RAD that you think is most radical?!

Symplectic Elements as the new research management system that BU is implementing this summer and it needs a name.

     

Whatever your preference remember to cast your vote before 19 August!

Happy voting! 🙂

[polldaddy poll=5372385]

Does anybody read this blog?! YES!!!!

Guidance

On Friday Steve Calver ended his latest MRG post with a question: “Does anybody read this blog?” – and within an hour a reader from another university replied to say “I do!“. Which is great! So I thought I’d share some of the visitor stats so you can get an idea of who views the blog and how regularly.

We measure footfall on the blog using the fabulous Google Analytics. The stats below are based on a period of 18 days during July and August 2011.

On average during this period the blog received 166 unique visitors every day, each spending approximately 2 minutes on the site.

51% of visitors find us via internet search engines. The top search terms led readers to our blog over the past 18 days are:

  • bournemouth
  • innovation
  • bu research blog
  • bournemouth university research blog
  • security
  • digital hub bournemouth university blog
  • ict
  • health
  • hefce ref training information events
  • marie curie fellowship 2011
  • kip jones rufus stone
  • bournemouth research blog
  • transport
  • bu logo
  • racism
  • bournemouth uk
  • culture
  • eurostat
  • statistics
  • wow effect

41% direct traffic, i.e. via the web address or via the BU Staff Portal. This is excellent as it shows that you lovely people who work at Bournemouth University are using the blog – hooray!

8% of visitors are referred to our blog by external sites. Our top referring sites are:

The bottom two are interesting referrals as these are universities in the USA that have picked up on our new BU Open Access Publication Fund and promoted the idea via their own websites. This has then encouraged visitors to these sites to visit our blog.

At present 30% of visits to the blog are made by returning visitors and 70% are made by new visitors.

Our visitors to date have come from 91 different countries (as displayed in the map below). The top ten countries viewing the blog are:

  • UK
  • USA
  • Germany
  • Spain
  • India
  • France
  • Poland
  • Canada
  • Belgium
  • Italy

So why is all of this information important?

Because it shows us two important things:

1. That the blog is working internally as the main means of sharing research news and information!

2. That the blog is working externally to promote the excellent research undertaken at BU!

We’re always seeking to improve things so if you have your own webpages/blogs then please feel free to use them to promote the BU Research Blog or ask us to link to your webpages/blogs from this blog, and if you have any ideas on how to improve our blog and/or to increase readership then please let us know! 🙂

BU’s keywords for research – is everything included?

Guidance

In May/June there was some discussion on the blog about developing keywords for research (research ontology/vocabulary/taxonomy) which would be used to classify BU research in future.

See previous blog posts here:

Looking to the future the finalised ontology will be extremely important in structuring how research at BU is presented, internally and externally, particularly on the external research webpages and the directory of expertise.

Responses received via the Blog indicated that the Science-Metrix ontology was too broad and that the Library of Congress ontology was too granular, so it seems that neither is a perfect fit for BU.

Using the Library of Congress ontology as a starting point we have worked with the Deputy Deans (R&E)/equivalent, Research Centre Directors and UOA Leaders to list the key specialisms applicable to BU. The resulting list is now available – you can read this by following the link below:

BU research ontology v3

We need to finalise the list by 19 August 2011. But before we finalise the list we’d very much appreciate your advice as to whether these keywords adequately cover your disciplines. If you’d like to suggest any changes to the list please could you add a comment to this post by 19 August?

In addition we are interested to know whether the proposed level structure is useful or whether one list of keywords would be preferable? Let us know your views by commenting on this post!

Referencing Dutch, Flemish & German names in the Harvard System

Guidance

For academics writing and citing in the English language there is often confusion and misunderstanding about how to reference my name when quoting one of my scientific papers.  More generally, there is considerable confusion about quoting and referencing Germanic names with particles or prefix, especially since the Flemish, Dutch and German ways of doing it differ from each other.  In addition emigrants from these countries to English-speaking countries such as Canada and the United States often reference to names of Germanic origin differently again. This particularly the case when one uses the Harvard System of referencing; which is where authors are briefly cited within the text (e.g. Bennett et al. 2009; Smith & Jones 1999), and then given in full at the end of the paper or chapter in a reference list.  A few years I published a short piece about referencing Dutch, Flemish and German names for Medical Sociology News (Van Teijlingen 2004).  This current version is an update and expansion of it. 

German names – Starting with the biggest group of authors, names in German can be preceded by the particle ‘von’ or ‘von der’ or occasionally ‘van’ (in a family of Dutch descent), for example the First World War general Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (better known as Paul van Hindenburg), the nineteenth century explorer Karl Klaus von der Decken or the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven.  The general advice to quoting these names in English is: “As a rule, when the surname is cited alone in English, the particle is dropped” (Trask 2002: 135).  Thus in the general media one would expect to read about Hindenburg’s victory or Beethoven’s Sixth symphony.   Under the Harvard System these particles or prefixes follow the author’s initials (Bett 1953: 17); something which is also advised by the widely used publication manual of the APA (American Psychological Association / http://www.apastyle.org/ ).  For an English-language audience it is often easier or more obvious to keep the family name and particle together (see Box 2).

Dutch and Belgium names – Dutch names can have a range of different particles, the most common one is ‘van’.  Also possible are, for example: ‘de’, ‘van der’, ‘van den’, ‘van het’, ‘op het’, or their  abbreviated forms such as: ‘van ’t’, ‘op ’t’ or ‘v/d’.  In the Netherlands, the particles take no capital letter, for example in de name of the former Manchester United goal keeper: Edwin van der Sar.  According to Trask (2002: 106) in Flemish-speaking Belgium (and South Africa) it is more usual to capitalize particles, for example: Paul Van Look.   

In contrast to German, Dutch particles are always included when the name is used in the text.  So, for example, Vincent van Gogh is referred to as Van Gogh.  Note that ‘van’ is without a capital when the first name is used and with a capital when the first name is not included, i.e. ‘Van’ is the start of the name.  Thus we would expect to read, for example, two Dutch football players: ‘Van Nistelrooij and Van der Vaart celebrated the second goal ..’ but if the first name is included we would use ‘Rafael van der Vaart and Edwin van der Sar celebrated ..’    In the reference list similar to German “particles are ignored when placing names in alphabetical order” (Trask 2002: 106).  However, the Dutch would not lose the particle, but place it after the initial.  For example, in a Dutch scientific article on the socio-linguistic study of city dialects, Roeland van Hout (1992) quotes two of his own articles as listed in Box 1.

Box 1   Example Dutch reference style of author with ‘van in the surname

 HOUT, R. VAN

1980 De studie van stadsdialect: van dialektologie, empirische linguistiek en sociolinguistiek.

Toegepaste Taalkunde in Artikelen 8, 143-162.

HOUT, R. VAN

1989 De structuur van taalvariatie. Een sociolinguïstisch onderzoek naar het stadsdialect

van Nijmegen. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.

If the Dutch football players mentioned above had each written something in a newspaper last week they would be found in the reference list of a paper by a sport psychologist or media studies researcher as:

Nistelrooij, R. van (2011)           

Sar, E. van der (2011)

Vaart, R. van der (2011)

Meijer (2009: 67) noted that in Belgium, where many people speak Flemish, a variant of Dutch, “it is customary to alphabetize under “V” anyway”.  Thus the action-film hero Jean-Claude Van Damme from Brussels (Belgium) whose real name is Jean-Claude Van Varenberg would always be listed in a reference list based on the Harvard under ‘V’.

Surnames of immigrants in English-speaking countries – Family names of Dutch emigrants often changed to suit the local style.  So in the United States we find medical sociologist Ray DeVries, the cyclist Christian Vande Velde, Gloria Vanderbilt and in France the French golfer Jean Van de Velde.  These ‘foreign’ names would be listed under the particle.  So alphabetically Vande Velde is listed after Vanderbuilt (Box 2).
Box 2  Examples of referencing Flemish, Dutch and German authors in English

German names Beethoven, L. van (1817) etc. etc.Beethoven van, L. (1817) etc.
Dutch / Belgium names Gogh, Vincent, van (1891) etc. etc.Van Damme, Jean-Claude (2002) etc.

Or keeping the family name and particle together:

van* Gogh, Vincent (1891) etc.

Van Damme, Jean-Claude (2002) etc.
North-American names Vanderbuilt, G. (1998) etc.Vande Velde, C. (2010) etc.

Legend: * note no capital for ‘v’.

Often academic journals will list all names in alphabetical order of the particle, in the same way the UK telephone directory does.  Thus van Teijlingen is listed under ‘V’. One final piece of advice for academic authors is the reminder to always check the author instructions of the journal you are targeting for its reference style. 

Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth University

 

References:

Bett, W.R., 1953, The preparation and writing of medical papers for publication, London: Menley & James.

Hout, R. van, 1992, Het sociolinguïstisch onderzoek van taalvariatie in stadsdialecten (In Dutch: Socio-linguistic research into language variations in city dialects), Taal en Tongval Special Issue 5: 48-65 (available at: www.meertens.knaw.nl/taalentongval/artikelen/VanHout.pdf ). 

Meijer, E., 2009 The apacite package: Citation and reference list with LATEX and BibTEX according to the rules of the American Psychological Association, available at:   http://ctan.sqsol.co.uk/biblio/bibtex/contrib/apacite/apacite.pdf

Teijlingen, E. van, 2004, Referencing Dutch, German and Flemish names in English, Medical Sociology News 30(1): 42-44 (copy is available from BURO at: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/11930/2/Referencing_Dutch_Flemish_names.pdf).

Trask, R.L., 2002, Mind the Gaffe: The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English, London: Penguin.

Overview of the REF draft panel criteria – what are the subtleties between panels?

Guidance, Research assessment

At the end of July the REF team released the draft panel working methods and criteria documentation (see our previous blog post for access to the documents).

We’ve spent the week wading through the four main panel documents and have produced a very brief overview of the subtleties between the panels on key criteria (such as the use of citation data, co-authored outputs, additional environment data, etc) in a tabular format.

You can access the overview table here: REF – draft panel criteria comparison table

Unfortunately this is no substitute for reading the actual documentation (sorry!) but does highlight the key points and differences between panels.

These documents are currently open to sector-wide consultation until 5 October 2011. BU will be submitting a single institutional response coordinated by the Research Development Unit. BU staff are invited to submit feedback for consideration as part of this response. Please email all comments to Anita Somner by 20 September 2011.

Launch of the BU Research Development Fund

Guidance

It’s a beautiful summer’s day and to celebrate the new academic year the Research Development Unit has some exciting news – the launch of the BU Research Development Fund!

The Research Development Fund (RDF) is open to BU academics and will provide selective support to research initiatives considered to be of strategic importance to BU. There are two strands to the RDF: i) Small Grants Scheme (up to £2k per application); and ii) Large Collaborative Grants Scheme (up to £25k per annum, must include two or more Schools). It is envisaged that each year approximately 20 small grants will be awarded and one large collaborative grant.

Awards will only cover direct costs (i.e. overheads and established staff costs will not be reimbursed). Applications need to include a precise breakdown of costs calculated using full economic costing (fEC) methodology – this will be calculated for you by the CRE Operations team.

All decisions on funding will be made by the University R&E Forum (UREF).

An overview of the two schemes is provided below. For further information please read the Research Development Fund Policy.

RDF – Small Grants Scheme (up to £2k per award) – There will be three competitions per annum. Academic staff wishing to apply must submit an application form to the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) via the RDU by the scheme deadlines:

  • 31 October 2011
  • 28 February 2012
  • 31 May 2012

Priority will be given to applications that involve staff from two or more Schools and/or those from early career researchers.

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Interview transcription
  • Fieldwork
  • Visiting major libraries, museums, other research institutions, etc.
  • Organisation of an academic conference at BU with external participants
  • Attendance at external networking events leading to collaborative research proposals
  • Meetings with external organisations to establish collaborations
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Research consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)

To apply for a Small Grant, please complete the RDF-SGS application form.

RDF – Large Collaborative Grants Scheme (up to £25k per award) – There will be one competition per annum. Academic staff wishing to apply must submit an application form to the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) via the RDU by the scheme deadline:

  • 1 December 2011

The RDF – Large Collaborative Grants Scheme aims to provide funding for the development of large-scale, complex, inter/multi-disciplinary collaborative research activities leading to external funding. Applications must involve academic staff from at least two BU Schools. Priority will be given to applications that meet the following criteria:

  • In line with BU’s emerging Research Themes
  • Include external organizations (particularly SMEs and/or international organizations)
  • In line with the strategic priorities of major funding bodies (such as the UK research councils, European Commission, etc)
  • Clearly beneficial to BU’s submission to REF2014

Examples of research activities covered by the RDF include:

  • Pilot projects
  • Pump-priming
  • Meeting expenses
  • Travel to proposed collaborators
  • Attendance at external networking events with the aim of expanding the network
  • Preparation of specialist material or data
  • Short-term Research Assistant support or replacement teaching
  • Consumables and equipment (providing it is clear these would not normally be purchased by the School)
  • Fees for external proposal support and review

To apply for a Large Collaborative Research Grant, please complete the RDF-LCGS application form.

Launch of the BU Open Access Publication Fund

Guidance, Publishing

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceBack in April it was announced that BU would be launching an Open Access Publication Fund in August 2011 (see the previous blog post here: BU’s open access publication fund to go live!).

Therefore, as of today BU officially operates a dedicated central Open Access Publication Fund (OAPF), launched in response to, and in support of, developments in research communication and publication trends. The fund is also to support research in complying with some of the major funding bodies who have introduced open access publishing requirements as a condition of their grants.

The fund is available for use by any BU author ready to submit a completed article for publication who wishes to make their output freely and openly accessible.

If you are interested in applying to the fund then you need to email Julie Northam in the Research Development Unit with the following information:

  • Name of the open access publication
  • Confirmation this will be a peer reviewed paper
  • A short justification (1 paragraph) of why it is beneficial for your research to be published in this particular open access publication
  • The cost of the open access publication
  • Likely publication date
  • Likely REF Unit of Assessment (UOA)
  • A copy of the paper

If you have any questions about the new OAPF then please direct them to me via email.

Further information:

Excellent PI development resource available from Vitae

Guidance

Earlier this year Vitae launched an excellent development resource for principal investigators (PIs). The Leadership Development for Principal Investigators training is available online, free of charge from here: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/policy-practice/263521/Leadership-Development-for-Principal-Investigators.html

The website provides information in the following sections:

  • What is expected of a principal investigator
  • Research environment
  • Impact
  • Managing people
  • Project management
  • Networks

Information is provided for both pre-award and post-award stages of the research lifecycle.

This is a fantastic resource suitable for PIs at all stages of the research career.

If you have used the resource to access information then let us know what you think by commenting on this blog post and share your tips with your colleagues!

REF Guidance on Submissions document released

Guidance, Research assessment

The REF2014 Guidance on Submissions document was released on Thursday and can be accessed on the HEFCE website here: REF Guidance on Submissions

We have prepared a summary document of the key points that can be accessed on the I drive: I:\CRKT\Public\RDU\REF

At the end of July the REF team will publish the draft panel working methods and criteria documents which will be open to consultation until the autumn. The Research Development Unit will be coordinating the BU response to the consultation – further details will be available once the documentation is released.