Abstract

Researchers and university finance departments rarely go hand in hand. Researchers often see finance as prohibitive. This very often leads to researchers being reluctant to ask for help, or advice on anything that is even remotely related to finance.

Over the last decade or so, many universities have set up dedicated areas to deal with financial compliance at the post award stage, but often we see the pre award and post award teams siloed from each other.

One area where this is often the case, is the creation of research proposal budgets. Quite often these are done in isolation, when some good collaboration with the post award or research finance team can make the world of difference between a project being successfully delivered within or on budget, and not, with the not usually meaning the project is underfunded. However, a project being overfunded can also be problematic, especially if the audit requirements are a return of unspent funds.

Good costing and pricing of research at the pre award stage, sets the scene for the post award teams who will most likely be dealing with researchers on a range of finance issues, including what to do if there hasn't been a sufficient budget allocation to start with.

In addition, even if the proposal is not able to attract the full budget, collaborations with the post award finance teams means that they have prior knowledge of the situation, and can already be planning with the researcher and the department on how to best manage the short fall, to still ensure a successful outcome.

This presentation will cover:
An overview of good costing and pricing
The importance of collaboration between the pre and post award teams
The impact of research on university budgets