External Funding for Research and Creative Activity
December 9, 2021
Updated on August 30, 2023
Dear Faculty Colleagues:
Every two weeks, you receive Focus on Funding: Research Updates from the Office of Academic Affairs. This biweekly email has information about funding opportunities that can support your research activities. You also have access to the Pivot funding database and the Grant Forward database so you can easily search for funding opportunities yourself.
External funding can be used to support research reassigned time, student research assistants, specialized equipment, and more. There are external funding opportunities targeted toward all of the disciplines in the College, not only laboratory sciences. There are federal programs that fund everything from research on supply chain management to entrepreneurial start-up costs, and from voting trend surveys to arts programming. Private foundations also fund research in a rich diversity of disciplines. This communication is meant to remind you of policies related to external funding—and also to bust some myths and misperceptions about research funding, especially related to indirect cost recovery and identification of the appropriate fiscal agent.
Where Do I Start?
If you are considering applying for a public agency or private foundation grant to support your research, please contact the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research (SPAR) for assistance. SPAR staff will help you identify appropriate funding sources, develop a budget for your project, ensure that your proposal meets the funder’s guidelines, submit the proposal on your behalf, and help manage the award once you receive it.
What is “Indirect Cost”?
The conduct of research has both direct costs, such as the purchase of a high-powered computer or the salary of the principal investigator and indirect costs, such as the power to run that computer or the salary of the staff supporting the research endeavor. The federal government negotiates an indirect cost rate for each CUNY campus that is based on a thorough review of campus costs and is proportional to the research effort at the campus.
That rate, 68.2 percent on personnel costs, is assessed only on federal grants. Private foundations often cap the indirect costs they will pay at 15 percent or 20 percent. Some funders will not pay indirect costs at all. If the indirect costs on an external grant is 15 percent or higher, you do not need to secure special permission to submit the grant. Foundation grants with a rate of zero to 14 percent must be approved by the provost in advance because the indirect costs are incurred regardless of whether or not the funder fully pays them. As such, they need to be made up from other sources since they will not be recovered from the grant itself.
A percentage of indirect costs recovered from sponsored projects is distributed to Baruch College entities based on established policies and procedures.
Who Benefits From Indirect Cost Recovery?
You do! The net indirect cost recovery funds go to: central administration to make college-wide investments that support the research enterprise; the appropriate school dean to fund replacement adjunct salaries; the PI home department; and the PI themselves. Ten percent of net cost recovery goes back to the PI to support current or future research. For faculty with large grants, this can be several thousand dollars per year—enough to fund, for example, a student assistant, a research trip, or a new piece of equipment.
Can I Have the Grant Funded Through the Baruch College Fund Instead?
The Baruch College Fund (BCF) is designed to receive gifts, including gifts from private foundations, with which they have established important relationships for the benefit of the College. While those relationships may be held variously by the BCF or the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research, it is the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research (SPAR) that is designed to receive grants for research, including grants from private foundations. In order to maintain federal funding to the institution, and future grant eligibility, research activity must meet standards for compliance with federal regulations. These include regulations related to the responsible conduct of research (RCR), export controls, human subjects (HRPP), and animal care and use (IACUC), regardless of the funding source.
Faculty-led research or community engagement projects funded by public or foundation grants must be administrated through SPAR. Funds are deposited with the RF and overhead charges are assessed based on funder requirements and RF policy. Grants from private foundations that are for the general good of the College and not for a specific faculty-led program are likely to be considered gifts and will be accepted by the BCF. If a project has specific deliverables, it is almost always considered a grant to be administered by the RF.
What About Human Subjects Review?
Outside of concerns that are Covid-related, the topic I hear the most about from faculty is the human subjects review process. I take these concerns very seriously and am working with ORCO staff to develop a culture that is both compliance-centered and researcher-friendly. Please understand that this will take some time and must be done within the framework of compliance rules, the federal regulations, and CUNY guidelines from which they are derived. In order to help create a bridge to the CUNY-based IRB, it would be very helpful to have the representation of one or more Baruch faculty on the Institutional Review Board.
Why Bother with External Funding?
The other topic I hear about frequently is that the faculty teaching load is in conflict with research interests. One way to address this is to integrate teaching and research through the scholar-teacher model. Another is to secure external funding that can be used to support research reassigned time. External funding for research is part of the U.S. higher education ecosystem. As such, our research expenditures are an important external measure of the research activity of our faculty. Our current research expenditures are approximately $7.5 million annually, which is low relative to other CUNY campuses and to other institutions of similar size. This is due in part to the predominance of business disciplines at Baruch, which are not traditionally viewed as sites for significant external funding. However, funding is available, even there, to pay for research reassigned time and other direct research expenses.
SPAR and ORCO staff stand at the ready to assist you in navigating the proposal, grant administration, and research compliance processes.
Looking forward,
Linda Essig
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs