Peter, you bring up an interesting and timely topic.  If this case you
mention involves a federal sponsor, I would caution you that in order for
the consulting costs to be allowable for reimbursement it must meet certain
specified requirements:
The work must be:
1. across department lines,
2. in addition to the faculty member's regular dept load ;and
3. must be specifically provided for in the award agreement, or
approved in writing by the sponsoring agency.

As far as being "common practice", its not my experience that faculty
members who are fully loaded seek to take on intra-university consulting
projects, but, I'm sure, it's not that uncommon either.

Hope this helps.

--Bill Irving
 PricewaterhouseCoopers
 (617) 478-3728

"Dolce, Peter J" <xxxxxx@MAIL.MMC.EDU>@hrinet.org> on 02/13/2002 04:29:41
PM

Please respond to Research Administration Discussion List
 <xxxxxx@hrinet.org>

Sent by:  Research Administration List <xxxxxx@hrinet.org>

To:   xxxxxx@HRINET.ORG
cc:
Subject:  [RESADM-L] Consulting and Effort

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 makest

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

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