Although Dr Hyde and I have both had fairly forthcoming advisors on topics large and small, the one topic that we find we know nothing about is:
How much money do our advisors receive each year in the form of grants or other funds, and how is it budgeted?
It's not as though we never discuss grants. I know how many grants my current advisor has and I also know what outside funding sources are paying a few trainees' salaries.
But I have literally no idea how much money these grants add up to per year, nor do I have even a hazy grasp on what fraction of the budget goes to salaries, equipment, or mousekeeping. The same is true for Dr Hyde, and again he has a quite outspoken PI who shares plenty of other pieces of information.
Obviously, we both need to get better informed if we are ever to put together our own proposal packages. I would also like to know more just to have a sense of what the impact is for the lab if I want to spend, say, $5000 on a piece of useful but not totally necessary equipment. I know we happen to be flush right now, but how flush?
So this is an etiquette question. Is it ok to approach my advisor and say, "I'd like to learn a lot more about lab budgeting and management so that I'm better prepared for an academic future--can you give me the approximate annual budget for this lab and tell me what percent of it is spent on various costs?" Is this rude, like asking about his salary? Is it just awkward, like asking about his dental work? Obviously I would try to time the question well, but I just don't know if it's something I should ask at all.
And it's still just odd to me, that with all the perspective and advice I've gotten from my mentors on how I would eventually want to run my own lab, none of them has ever told me how much money I would need to do it.
15 years ago
16 comments:
It is not rude. You should ask.
You can also check:
http://www.researchcrossroads.org/
It gives approximate information (not all grants are included and program projects are handled poorly).
Approximation for R01 and other grants I use is: one person in the budget - add $20k in supplies per year. However, it depends a lot on sub-field.
Yes, ask! You will need to be able to talk about this stuff on job interviews, so you need to be familiar with it. I was asked to lay out my plans for my first megabucks proposal during an interview and I nearly swallowed my tongue. During the break between the last meeting and dinner, I called my best friend (a PI at an R1) to explain how salary, overhead, startup, matching dollars, etc all adds up. At dinner, I did my best to unflub my previous assified responses.
The other thing you should do is ask PIs you know for the pdf files of their grant submissions so you can look over the monstrosities.
Absolutely ask! I did as a postdoc and it helped me craft the budget for the first round of grants I wrote. What if your first job offers offers you $500K in start up? You might think "that's enough" only to find out later the animal fees are eating you alive. That happened to more than one colleague of mine. When start up is gone, you'd better have a grant.
(1) It's not "rude".
(2) It doesn't matter if some dumbfuck thinks it's "rude", as--at least in the case of Federal funding agencies--by law it's all a matter of public record.
You can find the total amount on all US government grant websites. You may have to dig a bit, but it's there.
That said, when I was a postdoc I asked my supervisor for copies of his successful grants and I have also asked other colleagues for the same. People understand that this is all a learning process and are usually happy to discuss these things with trainees who will be putting grants together in the future. Seeing the grant and budget is far more helpful than just seeing the total.
If you approach your PI with the question you proposed, "I'd like to learn a lot more about lab budgeting and management so that I'm better prepared for an academic future," I think he/she would be more than happy to discuss it with you. It's something you need to be aware of and your PI will likely be pleased that you are taking the initiative to ask. Learning about all aspects of running your own lab is part of your postdoc training and a good mentor will take the time to help you get as much information as possible to facilitate your transition to faculty.
I routinely give grants of mine to my folks to read, so they should have at least some clue about the budgets; but then they also know how much I get paid, so it's not as though I'm hiding anything :-).
Given that I expect them to write grants, how else? And I *want* everyone to know that I'd rather you spent the $200 on a kit than took six months to develop an assay; but that the $75K auto-analyser might be a stretch (or whatever the numbers are).
Not rude at all. You can find out the total amount of NIH awards to anyone you wish by looking here:
http://report.nih.gov/award/state/state08.cfm
If you click on your state, awards are listed by institution, then PI, and the amount of the award is in there.
Budget breakdown you will have to get from the PI...
Yes, the totals from the federal government are accessible--but the budgetary breakdown is really what flummoxes me. Are salaries and benefits 20%? 50%? 70%? For that, I have to ask....
But thanks for the links--will check those out.
Jekyll, if you have a business manager, s/he would be good to ask about benefits and salaries etc and how everything breaks down in a grant (and different agencies/states have different breakdowns). For example, the rate for me (fed grant) is 20% (it includes retirement, workers comp, FICA, unemployment). The fringe rate is how much the univ charges the PI for their part of the benefits. If the grant didn't include retirement it would be 7%.
Ask a PI to see their monthly/quarterly grant management report so you can get a feel for the breakdown of a grant. For example, my printout has different codes (like retirement, life insurance, work comp, unemploy, dental, etc) on a separate page followed by more pages of domestic travel, international travel, supplies, etc. There might be an online system that the business manager can log into to show you and explain things.
My PI gives an annual state-of-lab address which includes a tedious breakdown of our funding situation, what each position makes including salaries and benefits, cost of mouse-house, equipment, what we spend on reagents...plus publications, along with a very rough estimate of cost/paper (number of papers divided by cost of running the lab for the year).
It's kind of terrifying but somewhat useful to know.
I wish he did it more than once/year. A lot can happen in 12 months. Our funding tanked in the last year and new are all surprised to be learning about it now since the 2008 SOL (pun intended) address seemed pretty positive.
I think it would be helpful if most PIs did this.
My grad lab averaged 10-13 researchers (2-3 postdocs and the rest grad students) and our budget was typically $1 million per year. I'm sure this varies a lot with subdisciplines- this was a lab in the biomedical sciences.
I agree that talking with your department grants administrator might be very helpful.
I think you should ask. How else are you going to learn? Or stick to the percentages if you are uncomfortable asking for the hard numbers....
Sure, ask! If they don't want to discuss it, they have that option.
I never asked my advisor but it was well known that my advisor was well funded. He never really spoke about it to the group with the exception of one time.
We had been buying diethyl ether from the stockroom. Unbeknownst to us, they had jacked up the price on only one container of a certain size---the size we used most.
When his email about changing our habits went unheeded by most, he did take the time to discuss money at one group meeting. He showed us how quickly we would burn through grant money if we continued. Very eye opening and it was a discussion that quite frankly he should have had sooner with us.
as a finance professional who handles the purchasing and AP for the research staff at a large research institution...
YES, YES, YES PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great question.
ask CRISP. that way you can also find out when those grants are up for renewal, i.e., when they run out.
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