Post Doc Course Fees on NIH RO1

[Lisa Jahr]

Hi Everyone,

I have a post doc who is trying to charge course fees directly to an NIH RO1 research project.  The justification is:

The requested course is a workshop covering the basic application of the statistical analysis software R to data science. The course provide critical training to improve the statistical abilities of personnel. The training in R-based statistics will provide an enormous number of statistical tools to better understand and model complex bioanalytical data. The training will specifically provide guidance on the integration of multiomics data to model cellular changes that occur during impaired autophagy.

Would this be an allowable direct charge to an NIH R01 research grant?   Any input is appreciated.

Thanks

Lisa Jahr 

[Jeff Zytkovicz]

Hi Lisa, I would say it is not an allowable direct charge. That type of charge does not sound appropriate for a grant intended for research unless those costs were explicitly included in the original, approved budget and/or there was a clearly-related, applicable training component to the award (I imagine there isn't). A similar question came up a few months back in this group on an NSF project (see Grad RA course fee on NSF project) from January 22nd. That's my two cents :)