Teaching release effort

[Angi Aune]

We have 4 different ways that we pay effort in ECE: 

1. Teaching release - they don't teach a certain amount of credits for a semester and cover that effort with other funds, usually grants. 
2. Summer effort - they cover their summer pay, usually with grants 
3. Cost share - during the academic year
4. AY research buyout - This is when they use time during the academic year that is set aside for research and charge it directly to the grant and not the department. 

My question is this: If a proposal states that effort "must not be cost shared, but instead a teaching release or summer effort," can I use that AY research buyout to cover some of their effort or does it have to be specifically teaching release or summer pay? 

Thanks!

[Erin Flathmann]

On one hand, it's clear the AY research buyout would satisfy the qualifier that effort would not be cost shared (first portion of their sentence).  But they further clarify their statement with naming that it must be a teaching release or summer effort.  It's possible that teaching releases would have different rules and mean different things in every department/college/university.  Personally, I would assume that the AY research buyout is clearly not cost shared, and therefore allowable.  

Is there anywhere else in the policy/proposal a definition of what "teaching release" means?

[David Hagen]

I agree with Erin and would consider what you have defined as AY research buyout as allowable time to be charged the sponsored award. 

I don't think sponsors think in terms of academic institutions (or departments) providing time for faculty to conduct research that is covered [aid for by departmental funding sources.  From their limited viewpoint, they view researchers as either teaching or conducting sponsored research.  At a lot of smaller institutions and in departments that are not research intensive, that viewpoint is probably accurate more often than not.

My interpretation of what they are trying to say is that you cannot cost share the time spent on their award (it must be charged to the award) and you cannot pay the researcher more than they otherwise would have been paid (i.e. they don't want you giving the researcher overload pay for the time they will spend working on this award).

David

On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 12:22:30 PM UTC-5 angi....@gmail.com wrote: