Susan -
Oh, yes, this is a conflict of interest. But we've all seen love blossom
over the lab bench, so it's not that unusual and the conflict can be
managed.
1) Prove the spouse's credentials - publications, synergistic
activities, research/awards in the field, etc. This needs to be able to
stand up to a rigorous external review (your local newspaper, the
relevant IGs office, etc....)
2) I assume the spouse is an independent contractor and not a temp
employee for the institution? If you have a co-PI on the award that the
spouse can be supervised by, that is good. Other options are that they
would report to and have invoices/effort reports signed off by a
department head/director/dean. You must remove all approvals of spousal
work from the other spouse. It's a control issue, and no matter how
honest and above board everyone is, if you don't the liability
possibilities are enormous.
3) Facilities & Office Space - where is the work going to take place? At
this point, we'll assume that the spouse is qualified and legitimately
capable of doing the work. Now we need to know where the work will take
place. Are they using their own space, or using the organizations space?
Why? Is there an agreement in place? Is it appropriate? Are we (the
organization) going to be charged for samples being processed on our own
equipment? Or will we be only charged for data analysis after those
samples are run? You get the idea..... are we paying someone's overhead
costs as a consultant when they are using our space and don't really
have any overhead.
4) Finally - why the spouse and not someone else? If the spouse's
credentials have been proven sufficient enough that they are capable of
doing the work, why the spouse? If the spouse happens to be the only
North American expert on the mating habits of Star Bellied Sneetches,
and the project needs one, case proven.
I have had a number of PIs that were/are married work together, and
we've managed to make it work. I've also had a situation where no one
knew of the relationship, and the spouse contracted to do work with us
on the other spouse's award, and was doing work after hours in one of
our labs, and then charging us a full fee for sample processing,
analysis, and write-up. That was ugly.
Good luck!
Tania
--
Accountability and accounting are not the same thing
Tania H. Clucas, CRA
Financial Manager
College of Natural Science and Mathematics
University of Alaska Fairbanks
354 NSF, 900 Yukon Drive
Fairbanks, AK 99775-5940
Voice 907.474.5740
Fax 907.474.5101
mailto:xxxxxx@uaf.edu
http://www.uaf.edu/csem
======================================================================
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")
======================================================================
