I'm looking for a little information about what others do for their
young investigators to support their career grants.  We traditionally
have waived the overhead on the NSF Career grants to show support of
these young investigators.  We recently had a proposal turned down and
one of the review comments was regarding us not budgeting the overhead.
Although I know this is not the reason it got turned down, the
investigator expressed concern over the negative comment.  With NSF's
change in policy with regards to cost share, we were nervous that we
were putting our grants at risk by not including the overhead.  I know
NSF's intent of the change in cost share policy was to level out he
playing field however, when our faculty talk with their program
officers, they say it is a very acceptable thing to do and they would
award a project that waived the overhead over one that didn't.  Because
we are changing our policy regarding waiving the overhead, our faculty
are really upset and feel that we are not supporting them.  Would others
be willing to share what things your institutions do for these young
investigators to give them the extra support to get them started?  Does
anyone else waive the overhead?

Thank you for any insights!

Carol

--
Carol P. Sprague
Director
University of Massachusetts
Office of Grant & Contract Administration
Research Administration Building
70 Butterfield Terrace
Phone 413-545-0698
Fax 413-545-1202

======================================================================
 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")
======================================================================