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Grant Clinic:

Budgeting for Effort: A Delicate Task

Reader Question: How do I know how much effort to allot to co-investigators and how much to pay consultants?

Expert Comments:

Again, we find ourselves in subtle territory.

Let’s start with consultants. When you budget for a consultant, you will describe, in the budget justification section, not only what he or she will do, but for how many days per year — this often will vary — and at what fee per day. The cost may be broken down by days or number of hours. The fee, of course, varies with the specialty, the consultant’s seniority, and the letters behind the consultant’s name. A lower-level consultant might be, say, a person (at another institution) with an M.A. in psychology who will score your heart rate variability data. Such a person might be budgeted at $30/hour, or around $250/day. A more senior consultant could be paid $500 to $1,000/day, depending on his or her seniority and fame. I suggest not paying any one consultant too much per day; it sticks out a bit. Instead, if you must, pay them a lower per diem but for more days per year.

Now for the co-investigators. Begin with the pragmatic analysis: How much time will the target investigator need to allocate to accomplishing his project-related duties? Think of this: There are 40 hours in a standard work week (don’t snicker). Twenty percent effort would mean that person would in theory work on the project one full day a week. Try not to skimp here. Everything takes more time than you think.* But this gives you a starting point.

However, as always, there are more subtle considerations. Say you plan to list a senior colleague as a co-investigator. He frankly is not expected to actually do anything, but his well-known name will be useful, perhaps politically expedient, and you might feel awkward if you left him out. So, there he is — in for 5 percent or 10 percent (10 percent of a senior-level salary could run, with fringe, around $25,000).

As to the co-investigators who are expected to do the work, you have to find the balance between what they have to do, how much you can afford, and what would appear questionable to a reviewer. The reviewer might wonder why a co-investigator in charge of, say, all the lab work, has been budgeted only 3 percent of her salary; or, they might wonder why 20 percent a year, for all five years of a grant, has been budgeted to a co-investigator whose main job is to help with data analysis that doesn’t really begin until Year 4? So, the effort allotments have to be determined by (1) actual effort as matched to the anticipated level of work; (2) political and personal considerations; (3) the funds that are available; and (4) the appropriateness of the level of effort as perceived by reviewers.

* When you start to trim the budget, cutting effort is always a favorite target because you can free up a great deal of money very quickly — the more so because of the fringe, and especially in more senior people who draw higher salaries. I caution you to be careful about going too far with this, or you can end up with a problem that lasts as long as the grant does.

Comments by William Gerin, PhD, P.I. e-Alert's Chief Grants Consultant, Professor of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, and author of “Writing the NIH Grant Proposal: A Step-by-Step Guide,” SAGE Books (2006)

Dr. Gerin provided additional articles on this topic in Principal Investigator Advisor monthly newsletter. View his previous article in last month's issue: Should You Use Co-Investigators or Consultants?

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