Valerie:

GSA rates are for Off The Shelf (OTS) commodities or services.  Your noticing
machine shops and testing would be appropriate for GSA.  I would find it
difficult to believe that research could be considered in the same sphere as
shovels, ammo, and uniforms.  If you notice, most of the services can be brought
to a unit cost per service, or $X for inputting Y number of persons on a
payroll.  Ask your researchers if they cost $75/hour to produce a definitive
quantity of a discrete unit of original science that the government can use
immediately.  Or, ask them if they want to be equated to payroll clerk, and if
so, the university wants some of their salary rate back.

Greg Schmidt

Valerie Seaquist wrote:

> Greetings --
>
> I have several PI's who are urging/pushing me to enter our researcher's
> rates in the GSA system. I don't think that this is a proper forum for
> university research but can't find anything specific to back me up. GSA is
> obviously commercial to me and we aren't supposed to be commercial or
> commercially competitive. I have noticed a few universities listing rates on
> the GSA web page but it appears that they are either machine shops or
> laboratory testing services--repetitive services that would have a set cost.
>
> Our university mission is teaching and research and putting our "rates" out
> on the buffet for someone to pick & choose seems to conflict with that
> mission. As far as rates, we propose the actual "rate" of each individual,
> not a standard rate for a "research scientist" or "research analyst II",
> etc.
>
> I've gone to the VP level and the consensus seems to be, "well, I don't
> think we should but I don't exactly know why not." Any thoughts, support,
> guidance on the "why not?"
>
> As always, thank you.
>
> Val Seaquist
> Office of Research Administration
> The University of Alabama in Huntsville
>
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