Federal indirect costs of research

The indirect costs of research program continues to make a very major contribution to enhancing and sustaining an environment that attracts and retains outstanding faculty, student, and post-doctoral researchers, Since we use a centralized funding distribution process that is strategically focused on our priorities, researchers benefit from a wide range of support such as enhanced library services, research services, computing facilities, specialized laboratories and other research infrastructure facilities. During the past year, we have taken significant steps to enhancing and coordinating knowledge mobilization and community engaged research. We continue to have high success rates in hiring our top candidates for faculty positions and our faculty attrition remains quite low. I believe the indirect costs of research program is a significant factor in the culture of international research excellence at the University of Victoria.

The enhancements the program makes to our research environment helps support our continuing success at attracting on the order of $100M in external research funding annually, a level sustained for the past few years. Better research services (e.g. grants facilitation) increase the success our researchers have in peer review grant competitions. As in past years, indirect funding assists us to leverage additional support from other funders in government and industry. One example is the way UVic Industry Partnerships (UILO) has succeeded in helping us to increase the value of industry contracts by using the indirect funds to support a contract officer. Knowing that tri-agency funding provides indirect support has helped us negotiate increased indirect support from other funders.

The indirect funding we receive helps free-up almost $6M that would otherwise be taken from our general operating funds provided by the province. This helps us to maintain and enhance a strong academic learning environment for our students and faculty. As our research success continues to increase, keeping up with the concomitant indirect costs is a significant challenge and funds from the program are vital to ensure continued appropriate support.

The overall impact of the indirect program continues to be very positive and central to the success for our research-intensive university. The University of Victoria’s research has quadrupled over the past decade with a commensurate growth in research activity and success. The funding support from the indirect costs of research program has allowed us to enhance the many services and facilities required to maintain this trajectory. With the indirect costs program as a demonstration of government support, we revised our “overhead” policies and procedures in 2010, taking a stronger stand in requiring external funders to cover the indirect costs of research. The result has been that the past year has seen an increasingly robust support environment for our research community.

In order for faculty to produce high quality research, they require the right tools and facilities in which to perform their research. It is vital that laboratories are up to date and have adequate space for the experiments, researcher and graduate students. For the University of Victoria, access to federal indirect funds has since inception enabled the institution to update and support its research laboratories and facilities in ways that would never have been possible without the program. 

Over the last number of years these funds have been utilized to support the renewal and renovation of research space across campus. Significant amounts were spent in prior years when the University had vacated space as a result of its expansion program. Over the last two years while the amount allocated to renovations has been more modest it was still vital in addressing the needs of faculty and graduate students. Without such funding faculty laboratories could not be renewed to address evolving research needs. 

Renovations in 2011/12 were completed in biology to support the requirements of new faculty and in psychology and anthropology to update outdated labs. Renovations to lab space help address existing issues surrounding recruitment and retention of both faculty and graduate students.Federal indirect funds are also used to cover a portion of the operating costs that result from research (utilities and maintenance). Research spaces typically have large power draws (e.g. fume hoods or significant computing resources) and often have specialized needs (i.e. cleanliness within animal care).

As well, in the last year, funds were used to purchase equipment for the central animal care facility. This equipment was infrastructure equipment needed to house and support the animals and not for research purposes.Without federal indirect funds, the University would either be required to fund these additional costs from the operating budget thereby impacting educational quality and the student experience or alternately reduce laboratory capacity and/or availability on campus.

The majority of the funding allocated under this category is spent on library acquisitions. As research is driven by information, the expenditures in this area have allowed us to improve the capacity of the university to make available information critical to the success of many research programs. For many disciplines, these expenditures have also been an important factor in the recruitment and retention of research oriented faculty. Many departmental Chairs, when recruiting, get questions from candidates about the quality of the library's resources in their research area and that this is an important factor when making a decision about whether or not to come to the university. Adequacy of libarary resources is also a significant retention issue. 

The library is often asked by Deans and/or Chairs to purchase research materials that are critical to a faculty member's research. If these expenditures are not incurred, many faculty members research would be impacted in a negative way which may prompt them to seek opportunities elsewhere. Federal indirect funds are utilized for these types of purchases. As well, the library continues to be able to purchase new forms of digital research sources, both historical and current, spanning a multitude of formats (e-books, texts, newspapers, statistical information, historical materials, and journals) which would not have been possible without this funding. As well as library acquisitions, funds in this category are used to purchase insurance for research vehicles.  Most research grants do not allow for the costs of insurance.  Hence, Indirect Costs of Research funding is the only source aside from scarce University operating funds.

Additionally, some of the funding is allocated to the information resources in the form of databases, telecommunications, information technology and research tools

The Office of Research Services benefits from four management and administration positions supported by the Indirect Costs of Research funding. 

The Research Funding Facilitator, Contracts Liaison and Research Funding Assistant (3 positions) provide vital services in the completion of the research funding agreements between the University of Victoria and our funding partners and collaborators. Timely review and effective negotiation are required in order to respond to the significant growth in the numbers and increasing complexity of research funding agreements. Partnerships with industry are key for University of Victoria to take advantage of a number of Tri-Council programs and these collaborations are particularly supported by the positions noted above.

The External Awards Officer supports the development of applications for awards, prestigious fellowships and other significant academic awards. This support ensures the detailed processes required to meet competition requirements are met, collaborating with faculty and administration staff.  The University of Victoria has had significant success in winning awards and our faculty members continue to be inducted into prestigious societies in significant numbers across all disciplines. This success is due in large part to the dedicated work of the External Awards Officer. 

Without the work of these management and administration staff supported by the Indirect Costs of Research, there would be a substantial reduction in the effectiveness of the support provided by the Office of Research Services for the contract review process, the preparation and management of major infrastructure proposals and the award process.   Diminishing this support would definitely reduce the success and recognition of the faculty members and other researcher personnel at the University of Victoria.

Indirect Costs of Research funding also supports personnel in Research Accounting and Purchasing dedicated to assisting researchers with budget submissions, reporting and purchases.  Many reports and submissions are complex and the dedication of support to this area is crucial to the effective administration of research funding at the University.  Without the Indirect Costs of Research, this support would not be possible.

Researchers at the University of Victoria submit over 700 applications for research ethics approvals and renewals each year. The Indirect Costs of Research funding supports the Human Research Ethics (HRE), the HRE Facilitator Coordinator and the HRE Liaison, three full time positions critical to the effective review and tracking of human research ethics applications. These positions also provide administrative support to the HRE Board, Chair and Co-Chair. The sustained high number of applications has made the effective management of the ethics review process critically important. In the absence of these positions, the response time would increase, resulting in significant delays in research activity and would make certain research projects impractical.

The University of Victoria supports significant infrastructure related to animal research, including small mammal and aquatic species. The costs of supporting the animal care facilities include the support for infrastructure, staff and operating costs. The Indirect Costs program provides substantial support for animal care staffing at University of Victoria, including the Aquatics System and Aquatic Husbandry support positions, the Animal Husbandry, Animal Health and Aquatics Coordinator, and the Animal Care Service Clerk. These positions are critical to the ability to effectively manage the aquatic and animal care facilities and ensure that the regulatory requirements of the Canada Council on Animal Care (CCAC) are met. 

The University had a regular CCAC monitoring visit in December 2011 in order to renew the CCAC certificate of Good Animal Practice (GAP), a requirement for an institution to conduct animal research.  The CCAC report commended the university’s level of administrative and management support to the program as critical for the successful provision of high quality animal care.