What methods do PIs out there use to track time spent on a funded grant project for reporting purposes with the funding agency?
I'm specifically interested in the USA, for reference, if it varies internationally.
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Prjoect management in the world is based on propertiary tools and people copying&pasting numbers from whatever format to a spreadsheets software. A software that is always at the forefront of the computational resources, i.e. a software that indipendently from how new is your computer, it will run always at the same pace: MS Excel :) .– EarlGreyCommented Dec 19, 2023 at 17:39
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5At least for the NIH and NSF, that level of reporting is not required. You say, "I spent 0.6 person months on this project" and you did.– IanCommented Dec 19, 2023 at 18:34
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1Are you looking for a program to log times spent on particular tasks by particular people?– isolated matrixCommented Dec 20, 2023 at 0:28
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1 Answer
Research administrator in the US here. Tracking depends on many things, e.g., sponsor policies and reporting, institutional policies on effort certification, etc.
In general, the method I use for PIs to help estimate, is I ask "how many hours/week do you spend on this project?" I can also do the same with the interval as a month if that it easier. Sometimes estimating "one day a month" makes sense, and then we extrapolate over 12 months to get to 12 days, i.e., roughly half a month (although you could be more precise at 0.40 if you need to).
When there are no time sheets, it's all a rough estimate. When it comes to RPPRs (progress reports) for NSF and NIH, a month is roughly 160 hours. So if hours is helpful to use, you can do that too. If you spent about 5 hours a month, then in the course of a year, it's 60 hours, and rounds down to 0 months on the report.
You need to check with your local research administrator for help with understanding your salary distribution. Those rules are always institution-specific. Overall you should be looking at the total amounts that go on your current and pending/other support documents and make sure you have a cohesive narrative about how you allocate your time. Funding agencies definitely care about what effort amounts you indicate on those documents to determine if you are overcommitted or not.
answered Dec 19, 2023 at 22:22
