Faculty who receive some or all of their salary from federal grants must be paid an appropriate percentage of their salary from non-federal sources while writing new grant proposals or engaging in other University of Washington activities, such as serving on departmental or university committees or holding advisory meetings with non-grant-related graduate students. It is the College’s expectation that the chair or director of a department or center will review faculty activities and ensure that when a faculty member is engaged in approved non-grant-related university activities, the faculty member is paid from a non-federal source of funds for the time spent on non-grant-related activities.
College Guidelines: Chairs and directors who have faculty in their units who receive most of their salary from federal grants should have regular meetings, quarterly at a minimum, with these faculty to discuss upcoming grant writing activities and proposed non-grant departmental or university activities. Through these meetings, the chair or director will determine when nonfederal funds need to be available to fund salary to cover non-grant-related activities and will identify department, center, or program funds to support non-grant activity. The percentage of the salary needed to be paid by the unit from non-federal funds should be proportional to the amount of non-grant university activity. It is important not only that the proportions of grant and departmental funds used for salary be reviewed on a regular basis but also that faculty inform their chairs and directors if their situations change between these regular meetings.
Below are some examples of how a chair or director might manage different situations.
1. Professor A has a 1.0 FTE appointment with 100% of salary paid from grants. During a quarter of grant proposal writing, the chair and Professor A might agree that 5% is the appropriate amount of salary to come from non-federal sources. (The actual split will be determined based on the nature of the proposal or other approved non-grant activities).
2. Professor B has a 0.5 FTE appointment with 100% of salary paid from grants. (Note that faculty who are less than 1.0 FTE and have all of their salary paid by a grant or grants – e.g., 0.5 FTE paid entirely by federal grants – are 100% federal grant-funded and are subject to these guidelines.) For a quarter during which Professor B has proposal writing or other approved non-grant activities, there are two options: (i) temporarily supplement Professor B’s funding with non-federal sources, raising the FTE to greater than 0.5, or (ii) replace part of the grant-related funding with non-federal sources. In case (i), Professor B continues to devote the same effort to the grant activities while adding new responsibilities; in case (ii), with Professor B’s FTE fixed at 0.5, Professor B reduces grant-related activity and replaces it with other activities. In either case, the percentage of salary paid by the unit from non-federal funds should be proportional to the amount of non-grant university activity.
3. Professor C has a 1.0 FTE appointment with 80% of salary provided from grants and 20% from other sources. If the terms under which the 20% from other sources allow for nonproject activities, then no other action is required, provided non-grant related activities do not exceed 20% effort. Otherwise, the unit would provide the appropriate amount of funds for those activities.
For faculty with 9-month state-funded appointments who receive federal funding to support summer research activities, these guidelines apply during any summer month when salary is provided from federal sources.