VPR Program Administration Grants

Many tasks are required to administer research projects. These include project management, bookkeeping and cost control, completion of forms for payroll, purchasing and other purposes, and reporting to the funding agency. Researchers who are successful in attracting large-scale research grant funding, whether from one or several sources, but without provision for paying administrative support personnel, find that such work takes valuable time away from the performance of their research.

Accordingly, researchers are strongly encouraged to apply to the external granting agency, within the budgets of their applications, for sufficient funds to cover all anticipated project administrative expenses, wherever the regulations of the agency permit such use of their funds.

When a researcher has been successful in obtaining large-scale research funding but administrative costs are not allowed by the granting agency as part of the budget, the Office of the Vice President, Research is pleased to be able to provide financial assistance in the form of a VPR Program Administration Grant. Decisions on funding and funding levels will be based on the number of research grants administered, the complexity of required transactions and cumulative dollar amounts of the grants.

Such grants would be made over the term of the large-scale external funding, in one of two forms:

  • A grant of up to $5,000 per annum as a salary offset for a research assistant, a portion of whose time is dedicated to administering research grants for the specific grantee.
  • A grant of up to $5,000 per annum as a salary offset for an existing departmental staff member (or members), a portion of whose time is dedicated to administering research grants for the specific grantee.

Application for a Research Program Administration Grant may be made at any time and is by memorandum addressed to the Vice President, Research, accompanied by a completed SFU Research Funding Application Signature Sheet. The memorandum should provide the following information:

  1. A list of the grants held for which project administrative funding support is being sought. For each, indicate title, start and end dates, amount per annum, and sponsor; there should be indication of which sponsors do not permit charging administrative costs to their grants.
  2. A description of the specific project administrative tasks required.
  3. Proposed annual budget for performing the tasks described under 2) above. All proposed sources of support to cover these costs, including the Research Program Administration Grant, should be indicated.

Approval of the application by the Department Chair or School Director is required, confirming:

  • the reasonableness of the expenses; 
  • any departmental contributions and provision of infrastructure such as space and office furniture or equipment for the research administrative employee; and 
  • the arrangements to assign an existing employee to perform the research administrative tasks, if such is the case.