Expenses Guidelines & Resources

College Policies regarding Eligible Expenses

Projects funded through the Research Opportunity Fund (ROF) will be subject to all Niagara College policies, while following the Tri-Agency Guide on Financial Administration. In particular, research funded through the ROF is subject to:

• • College policies,
• • College Intellectual Property policy,
• • Finance and Purchasing, and
• • If needed, Niagara College Research Ethics Board approval, when dealing with human subjects in research.

Research will also generally follow the Tri-Agency Guide on Financial Administration.

Eligible Expenses

Expenses need to be directly related to the conduct of the research project. Examples of eligible expenses include,
but are not limited to:

• • • • Faculty Release for full time (FT) faculty
      • • These are backfill costs to cover the cost of part-time faculty hired to teach the course full-time faculty is released from. This is forecasted at $9,000 per release.
    • • Student Research Assistants
      • • Students can work up to 20 hours per week during the school term and 35 hours per week during breaks.
      • • Each student is required to complete 10-15 hours of mandatory training at the start of their employment.
      • • Student salaries include an estimated 17% for benefits. As of February 1, 2023, the student hourly wage for research assistants is $16.74
    • • Incremental costs for additional hours for administrative & support staff (to be confirmed with HR)
    • • Materials & Supplies
      • • Consumables for prototype development & testing
      • • Minor capital equipment (less than $5K). This is for small pieces of equipment needed to complete the research project. To be housed with the academic department upon project completion.
      • • Resource materials
      • • Specialized software that is not available through ITS.
    • • Travel required as part of the project work.
      • • Supply pick-up, travel to off-site project location, meetings with collaborators.
    • • Participant recruitment & remuneration for research participants. Note, prior approval from the Research Ethics Board is required.
    • • Outreach Costs for the purpose of promoting research results.
      • • Conference attendance to present results. Conference attendance needs to be pre-approved by the ROF committee.
      • • Travel related to approved conference.
      • • Poster development/printing fees
      • • Outside Expertise
        • • Fabrication shop, Lab analysis, etc.

Ineligible Expenses

The following are examples of items that are not appropriate use of funds:

• • • • Capital costs
    • • Professional Development costs (training courses etc.)
    • • Payment of full-time faculty salary
    • • Overhead costs
    • • Payments to the applicant, the co-applicants, relatives of an applicant, or any existing Niagara employee (reference the NC COI policy)
    • • Project partners

The committee will consider, on a case-by-case basis (dependent on funding available):

• • • • Legal, trademark, or patent costs
    • • Publication costs related to research report or white paper
    • • Costs related to accessing specialized repositories for uploading results

Resources

• • Full Budget template (Appendix A) – [download]
• • Expenses Guideline – [download]

For more information related to eligible/ineligible costs, please contact Rachel Brown, Manager, Finance, Operations & Compliance, with Research & Innovation.