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6 Consulting Section 1 As a researcher you will be carrying out a range of duties and consultancy will only ever form part of your portfolio of activities and is likely to rank behind research, teaching and your essential administrative duties. Nevertheless, consulting can link back constructively into many of your activities and particularly creates good research opportunities. To assist you in distinguishing between a consulting assignment and a research opportunity, a good question to ask yourself, excluding confidentiality issues, is "Is it likely that this work will lead to the production of new knowledge, which is capable of being published?". If the answer is "no" then it is likely to be consulting work. If the answer is "yes", then it is probably better dealt with as a research project. Consulting opportunities can arise early in your career, especially if you are active in promoting your expertise. In general the amount of consulting that you do will increase over time, as will your fee level. These usually grow as you establish your reputation and develop your network through your research successes and as you engage in other enterprise activities, such as spin-out companies and licensing. If you are to be involved in any consulting activities you must obtain all of the necessary internal permissions in advance and involve your institution's Contract Services Office or its equivalent and, if there are non-routine aspects of equipment use, inform your institution's Health and Safety Officer. Be sure to follow to the letter your institution's policy on the use of its notepaper, business cards and logo. In general your institution (and any client) is likely to prefer you to work through its system, rather than you acting in a private capacity. In fact it may insist that you do. If your institution has charitable status there is a number of complex issues to be considered and you will need to be very careful to ensure that any private consulting that you plan to carry out does not put that status at risk. Always check first. Contact your institution's authorised office(s) to find out about the specific benefits it offers by undertaking consultancy through its auspices. However, if permitted by your institution, you can undertake consultancy work through a privately-owned service company or through self-employment, which have differing tax, legal and risk issues. Further information on this subject is available from public sources (see References in Section 7), but expert advice should be taken before any consultancy work begins.