UPDATE From Doug Call October 21, 2020:
Chris Keane, VP for Research, has released a revised draft for the new Executive Policy #2 (EP2). We are providing a link to the policy here. One significant change from the last draft is that there will be no changes to current practices for F&A distribution to the college and departments. That is, this will remain 8%/15% Dean/Chair. Dr. Keane is speaking to the Faculty Senate on Thursday, October 22. A primary focus of his presentation will be about changes to EP2 that enhance strategic planning and transparency for how funds are expended from the 77% allocation. Many thanks for everyone’s feedback to date and to the Office of Research for their willingness to engage in robust and productive discussions. Doug Call
The Washington State University Office of Research is in the process of updating Executive Policy #2. EP2 concerns how Facilities and Administration (F&A) funding from grants and contracts is distributed at WSU. If adopted, the new version establishes a system for reporting central expenditures from F&A (via a Foundational and Strategic Investment Fund), clarifies how F&A will be distributed across campuses, and changes the distribution of F&A returns (prior policy routed 15% to the department and 8% to the dean. The new policy routes 23% to the dean and there is no direct return to the department). The Faculty Senate chair (David Turnbull), chair elect (Douglas Call) and past chair (Greg Crouch) have reviewed and provided feedback on a previous version. The draft posted here has been provided by the Office of Research for faculty comment.
All economists understand that people respond to incentives. This removes most incentives (especially for full-rank professors) to write grants with significant F&A. Currently we receive a lot of social pressure and motivation from our departments to write grants. This would disappear. Taking this money from the PIs and departments will help the colleges in the short term, but hurt the university as a whole in the long run. College deans can promise to keep using that money to benefit the departments, but we all know how those promises get forgotten in any crisis, or whenever a new dean comes in, or whenever the dean needs funds for a pet project or initiative that will make them look good.
It is not clear how this will play out on the non-Pullman campuses. For example, the Chancellor of Vancouver currently receives a percentage of F&A generated by his faculty as does our College Director. It is also not clear if there will be any of this money given back to the PIs on our campus. With the separate budget model, as we currently have, how will we PIs on the Vancouver campus be supported by the Deans? Will the Provost ensure that our labs are funded? Will we receive funding for hiring assistants? Buy necessary equipment? There is a lot at stake here, and this proposal does not clearly address them.
I am unsure if the reasoning behind the change was to redistribute the 15-8% split. However, redistribution to 100% going to the Dean is completely out of balance. The University works with share governance, but this removes any financial freedom or power from departments. I am firmly against any organization receiving 100% of the funds.
In addition to being a very important revenue source for the university, F&A is also extremely important to the departments, research and extension centers, county extension offices, and PIs writing the grant. To remove F&A distribution to all of these entities will completely eliminate a revenue source that could be used at their discretion to support their infrastructure and programs which were highest priority from their perspective. It also greatly reduces incentives for those actually writing the grants and performing research/teach/extension objectives. A system where all entities who bring in F&A benefit from their generation would be much better
F&A is generally defined as “indirect costs” or overhead (e.g., electricity, central administrative services), are the real costs of university operations which are not readily assignable to a particular project. Given that a large number of the administrative services as well as overhead are covered in the departments, research and extension centers and county offices it is essential that a portion of F&A be designated to those areas. If F&A funds are designated to the level where they are used there will be a disincentive to acquire grants which generally create greater administrative support and facilities at the local level. Additionally, current budgetary cuts are being handed down to those levels where we are being encouraged to come up with alternative funds. If budget deficits will not be dealt with at the Dean’s level it is not equitable to expect all F&A to go there.
If we wish to stop the hemorrhaging of funded faculty andencourage faculty to write more grants, directly reward the faculty generating the research grant money by mandating that the dean/chair give 10-20% of generated F&A back to the faculty in a state accrual account controlled by the faculty. This is common practice at some universities.
After so many rounds of budget cuts, F&A has become an important source of revenue for departments to maintain research related operations. Some departments have to use F&A returns to cover partial salaries of staff. Faculty members also need the partial return of F&A from departments to bridge the gaps between grants. This proposal will badly hurt the moral of productive research departments and faculty members.
For a healthy University it is critical that the economic decisions and the governance are shared between the academic units, the colleges, and the university. The funds for discretionary spending must be distributed at all levels. All the academic units have been subjected to budget cuts, many of the cuts on state allocations were balanced with projected F&A income, without these funds the research-intensive units will go to bankruptcy. This money is typically used by faculties and the units to invest in very much needed equipment, and to pay assistantships to graduate students to complete their degrees after grants have ended. Without F&A returns, successful faculties will be forced to reduce the size of their research groups and the research activity of WSU will drop. I strongly recommend maintaining current share of F&A funds between deans and academic units.
Before 1980, this part of indirect recovery costs all went to the Deans. This was a problem in managing individual grants and changing it required legislative intervention. The policy of returning ICR/F&A funds to departments was established to meet infrastructure requirements that could not be charged to grants and to reduce the role the Deans play in managing funded research. So, for example, buying an ice-maker, which is essential equipment for many types science, can only be bought with grant funds if it is only used for grant objectives—the ice-maker cannot be for common use. When these funds went to the Deans, an investigator and their chair had to request funds from the Dean, who often ranked other priorities higher than meeting the obligations of the investigator to the granting agency. But without an ice-maker, the investigator’s research might not get done and would mean that renewing the grant funding was more difficult.
Reverting to a policy where the Dean has full control of all of these funds risks killing the geese that obtain these grants. Higher-level control became much less of a problem after a 30% ICR return was established (20% department/10% Dean). The subsequent attractiveness of WSU’s increasing funded research portfolio (and some peculiarities in how WSU budgets) led to a shift to the current 23% share. Decisions about relatively small expenditures on specific research projects are best made by those closest to the projects and that means at the level of the individual investigator or department. At least one Dean has indicated that he will not change how these funds are shared in his College but while this alters the situation for his faculty members, it does not deal with the general problem for others and maybe not into the future. F&A return to departments is an efficient way to allow investigators to have more input into how the “indirect cost” part of their grant funding is managed. Changing the policy as suggested would be a mistake that Deans would soon see in their calendars, as chairs lose some of their autonomy and line up to beg for funds that they best know how to spend and the Deans often know little about.
F&A funds are vital for maintaining research infrastructure and support at the local (Departmental) level. This change would undermine critical research support and reduce WSU’s research competitiveness. If we want to succeed in the Drive to 25 we need to support research, which means directing F&A funds to closely supporting research activities at the departmental level.
I agree with the comments above opposing the change to stop F&A distribution to the departments. Instead of making this change, the committee should revise the 50/50 distribution of F&A between Vancouver and Pullman. I understand the need for Vancouver faculty to contribute F&A for the library, IACUC and IRB, and a small percentage to Pullman administration, but this does not add up to 50% of the F&A generated by a grant in Vancouver. Most of the research related costs for a grant in Vancouver are in Vancouver. The split should be closer to 25% to Pullman and 75% to Vancouver. The current 50/50 distribution either needs to change or the administration in Pullman needs to start doing a lot more to support research in Vancouver.
A problem that has not been mentioned about the new distribution plan is that the entire 50% of the Vancouver F&A goes to the Chancellor as opposed to some going to the College Director (essentially our local Dean). Central administration in Vancouver gets 38.5% and the college Directer only gets 11.5% under the distribution policy that has been in place for over 25 years. This is already unfair in that if the same grant were in Pullman, the College would get 23%, not 11.5%. The new plan allows the Dean in Pullman to keep the full 23%, whereas the Director in Vancouver gets nothing. Vancouver faculty are constantly told we are not second class, but the money distribution sends a pretty clear message about how Pullman Administration really views us.
In sum, more F&A needs to come back to Vancouver, including to the College, to support the research on that campus.
F & A reaching the County based grant PI’s and to the Departments is crucial to the continued program development, delivery and expansion as state and university funding continues to be cut. In addition, this proposed action would greatly impact morale which grows more fragile everyday.
My opinion echoes those that have already been posted here. The taking of the F&A funds away from the Departments disincentives grant application, makes it more difficult to do research, and creates additional barriers to supporting the university’s and individual campuses’ strategic plans. If Department’s have to reconcile budget deficits passed down from the system and the state, it makes no sense that they should not also be in charge of some of the funds needed to address those deficits, particularly when they were the ones to generate them in the first place.
There are two additional issues from my perspective. One is how is “accountability” defined? “Transparency” seems to mean an annual report, but if faculty or departments feel that the funds are not being allocated according to the plans and priorities that are laid out, what recourse is actually available and how will that process be implemented? The second issue is that the movement of all of these funds to the Deans will increase their administrative burden, since all the requests that go through the Departments will now go directly to them. Invariably this will lead to either delays in funds allocations, or the hiring of additional administrative staff to avoid these delays. Neither one of those outcomes is desirable, particularly given our current budget situation and the growing cost of higher education.
As one of the lowest salaried full professors who has had 30% FTE research funding for 4 years, as well as funding 4-5 faculty and graduate students, this leaves no incentive to continue to write successful grants. I have seen how a dean can abuse their slush fund on pet projects that do not benefit the college or faculty/staff. Also, the issue of FGO is another consideration with faculty voice being the collective wisdom. I am against this initiative or change in policy. Until CON faculty receive a fair salary, and the CON receives the resources needed to maintain and expand programs, I am against this change.
The change that needs to be made to EP 2 is the percentage that comes to the campus on which the research and faculty are based. The percentages assigned no longer reflect the reality of expenditures between Pullman and Vancouver in support of research on the Vancouver campus. A greater percentage should go directly to the campus on which the research takes place.
There are items we cannot include in grant budgets, such as office supplies, printer paper, toner, technical support, etc. The reason we can’t include these in grant budgets is that they are considered indirect costs. If we make changes to how indirect is managed, then it is essential that the indirect costs that cannot be budgeted for be managed correctly.
From my personal perspective, moving indirect funds from the department to the college level will likely make it more difficult for these funds to directly support the projects that brought in the funding.
As others have commented, the Drive to 25 campaign is built on the notion that our research quality will improve, which requires the proper management of indirect funding for these projects.
As a young faculty member still trying to build a research program, sometimes the F&A returns act as that buffer that helps fund the next proposal. I can’t exactly determine whether this eliminated F&A returns to individual faculty members, but those have acted for me as an enabler to buy things outside the scope of existing grants to prepare for a new area or a new grant. I have also used it for travel to a collaborator institution for a collaborative grant jam session.
Before this is voted on and enacted, there should be specific, detailed, and nearly immutable agreements between deans and their departments about how they commit to distribute those returns and the procedures to change that in the future (i.e. not by Dean fiat).
This is the opposite of what should be done. Instead of centralizing the power and finances in the hands of the Dean, the finances and power (to teach and do research) should be de-centralized and given to departments and faculty. This would provide incentive for better work and the feeling of true shared governance. Having the Dean hold the purse is not shared governance, it is a corporate management. The faculty then become no more than employees of the corporation. What is then the role of the department chair? What powers? What incentives? Shared governance is done primarily on the department level, and without funding, it becomes meaningless.
Thank you all for your comments. I agree to all of them.
Being an experimental researcher at WSU for the past 23+ years, we depend on our F&A returns to fix old machines that our current grants don’t cover, yet they are vital to the proposed research. It is also useful to support student and faculty travel expenses as most grants don’t cover much travel support. It also covers summer salary for faculty members. And during this COVID environment, most of the PPEs that we are purchasing, I am using the F&A returns account. To me this policy change means that in the future, for all those needs, I need to go and beg from my Dean, and I can only imagine the answer that I will get.
Returning some part of F&As to the PIs must be preserved at WSU.
I have read the other faculty comments and there is a list of rationales for not doing this. And they seem reasoned. What I am not seeing is a rationale from the Office of Research for why this is a good idea (Section II of the policy is not a reason to do it – its a description of what the process will look like). What is the problem being solved by this change and why is this the solution OR came up with?
If the problem being solved amounts to: the colleges just needs the money, why aren’t they simply taking it from student housing and dining end of year funds like the athletic department does (https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/wsu-cougar-football/wsu-athletics-deficit-expected-to-rise-above-100-million-and-coronvirus-effects-could-cause-more-pain/)?
I conduct research at a REC. The portion of the F&A that is returned for our use at the REC for costs associated with ‘facilities and administration’ is a pittance. I often wonder dejectedly how the ‘overhead’ charged on grants that I secure is actually spent.
Some of my articulate and thoughtful colleagues in the School of the Environment have already weighed in on the serious shortcomings of this proposal, as well as a need for a real rationale for this policy. I wish to merely echo their sentiments. This seems to be at very least a disincentive to grant-seeking faculty from the standpoint of morale at the department level. If more funds are needed at the College level, then perhaps the split can be negotiated; but to do away entirely with funds retained by the department seems unreasonable.
The 15% split of F&A is an important resource for facilitating additional research in our department that provides an incentive for increased grant submissions. While our current Dean has our assured us that these resources will continue to reach our department, Deans and their policies can change. There has been no rationale presented for this policy change, and a rush to push this through quickly. This policy has all the hallmarks of a money grab.
Departments have been cut repeatedly over the past several years and rely on F&A returns to fund the things that make a department a supportive place for students and faculty – travel, bridge funding, seed grants, fixing equipment, etc. Centralizing these funds to the colleges so that each expenditure would have to be requested takes away the ability of a department to plan for themselves how to to support their research enterprise and would be greatly detrimental to research programs and departmental morale at WSU.
Please note I am communicating this concern on behalf of one of my CAS constituents:
What is the rationale for the proposed change to how F&A funds are allocated to colleges and departments (EP2)? It is not clear what existing problem needs to be addressed, let alone how this proposed change addresses that problem. The departments, colleges, the university, and the research itself are all better served by allowing those directly responsible for obtaining and carrying out the grant to use a portion of the funds as they see fit to complete the work. Further consolidation of money and power at a level above that of the researchers who acquire the funds will only hobble the very people responsible for carrying out the work, and this trend should be resisted without a clear and persuasive rationale for what this proposed change will accomplish. The negative effects of this change are clear to PIs, but the positive effects are not.
I would like to echo a previous question: what is the rationale for this change in policy? I see downsides: departments and PIs will be less autonomous in their able to address their own research needs, and will be disincentivized from getting grants with large F&A, and thus research productivity could decrease. Also, important outcomes of this change seem to be unclear, especially with regard to implementing this policy across the campuses, which could lead to future disagreements. How does this policy support WSU research excellence on the Drive to 25?
Not a motivating policy change. Not understanding why the change, only appears for be another draw back of funds.
Just so everyone knows, I conveyed the concerns above comment to the Office of Research and we have had a follow up meeting. I am expecting a new version in the near future and will add it to this blog as soon as authorized. thanks, Doug
I see numerous reasons why we should not approve this plan, and essentially no articulated reason why we should. This would make it much more difficult for departments and faculty to plan, to respond to the numerous regular needs for small amounts of funding (e.g., service agreements for common equipment), for all of the things that make a department functional and attractive to researchers and grad students (e.g., travel grants, seminar series). I see all down side and zero upside.
I oppose the proposed change–There are certainly a lot of down the line potential pitfalls with centralizing F&A that others have mentioned above, including the basic issues of reducing incentives for those who spend a great deal of time working on and winning proposals, which are fundamental to our “Drive to 25”.
Reading the proposed policy doesn’t really provide any great justification other than centralizing control, adding additional bureaucratic layers, and most likely appropriating funds and decision-making from units. A major issue is the lack of clear explanation of the rationale behind this. I mean, why fix what isn’t broken? The draft language was quite vague and didn’t even attempt to explain and benefits for admin, units, or faculty. In fact, there is a lot of research around the pitfalls of centralization, eg.., “Whats happening to our universities?”, which addresses the move toward more hierarchical and centralized structures: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08109028.2016.1222123
An added layer of concern revolves around ongoing issues with systemic injustices that are related to oversight of this kind. However unintentional, structural moves such as this in effect chip away from lower level decision-making . As a woman and advocate for people who may not have historical or current representation in university structures (ie those folks often at those lower levels) I don’t think that this is an unfounded concern. While I feel extremely supported by current Dean and leadership in my unit, this can certainly change (as others have pointed out), and I worry about issues arising particularly for individuals and entities that rely a great deal on soft money.