Re: Consulting and Effort Herbert B. chermside 14 Feb 2002 13:33 EST
First, consider that a consultant provides his/her professional services as a private entity, not drawing on the resources of his/her institution. Can the effort proposed for this person be performed privately? It might be wise to get a letter of commitment from the purported consultant which clearly indicates that the consulting does not involve his/her home institution. And, can the work be accomplished without institutional resources? Second, consider the cost of that proposed consultancy. Might someone else perform equally as well at a lower cost. Hiring a consultant is a procurement -- usually sole source because the expertise is unique -- but applying procurement tests often roots out situations where "consultant" is being used to get around various system problems. Chuck At 03:29 PM 2/13/2002 -0600, you wrote: >One of our PIs wants to engage a faculty member at another school as a >collaborator. That faculty member already has 90% of her effort committed >to grant-funded projects, and the remaining 10% is not sufficient to make >the proposed collaboration convincing to the proposed sponsor. The solution >proposed by the two investigators is list the collaborator as a consultant >for ~$20,000. > >Is it a common practice to use the consulting mechanism to engage >collaborators whose is effort fully committed to other projects? > > >Peter J. Dolce, Ph.D., Director >Office of Research Support Services >Meharry Medical College >1005 DB Todd Boulevard >Nashville, TN 37208 >V 615 327 6703 >F 615 327 6716 > > >====================================================================== > Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including > subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available > via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") >====================================================================== Herbert B. Chermside, CRA Director, Sponsored Programs Administration Virginia Commonwealth University PO BOX 980568 Richmond, VA 23298-0568 Express Delivery Only: Sanger Hall, Rm. 1-032A 11th & Marshall Streets Richmond, VA 23219 Voice: 804-828-6772 Fax 804-828-2521 OFFICE e-mail xxxxxx@VCU.EDU Personal e-mail xxxxxx@vcu.edu http://views.vcu.edu/ospa/ ====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") ======================================================================