Review of the dual support transfer : final report, November 1995 / Office of Science and Technology.
- Great Britain. Office of Science and Technology
- Date:
- 1995
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Review of the dual support transfer : final report, November 1995 / Office of Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![have devolved the responsibility for resource management down to academic department level. iy There are a number of issues that will need to be addressed before there is a widespread understanding of the full costs of research. In the institutions we visited the research council project related costs associated with premises, academic staff and central computing and the associated overhead (the institution side of the dual support transfer) were not explicitly identified and as a result, principal investigators and other staff were not in a position to understand fully the level of support provided to research projects by the institution over and above the costs reclaimed from research councils. 8 We found that there is a widespread perception amongst principal investigators that the cheaper the grant the more likely it is to be funded by the research councils. Consequently there can be a reluctance among principal investigators to acknowledge or expose the full costs of a project. 9 Some academics are still under the misapprehension that the forty per cent of staff costs provided by the research councils represents the total additional costs associated with research projects over and above the direct costs claimed from research councils. This misapprehension is also found among some external funders of research (ie non research council) who are using the forty per cent overhead addition payable on research council grants as a benchmark for their own overhead contributions. Whilst in the short term this might be helpful in levering overhead contributions from organisations that have not previously paid them, in the longer term institutions will need to ensure that all funders are aware of the total costs of research not just those that fall on the research councils. Clarity of funding responsibility 10 During the 1980s there was growing concern that the dividing line between the respective funding responsibilities of the research councils and the universities had become confused. One of the main reasons for the dual support transfer was to provide greater clarity in the funding arrangements. There are two elements to be considered when looking at the extent to which this objective has been achieved: e the clarity of the dividing lines between what should be funded by the research councils and what should be funded by institutions; e the clarity of the divide between indirect costs and direct costs. Institution and research council responsibilities 1] In general we found that the boundaries between the categories of costs which should be funded by the research councils and those which should be funded by institutions were clear and understood by those applying for and appraising grants. The one exception was the funding of equipment.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32218709_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
