Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/392125
15 Funding Section 3 n Expenses If you have to travel, say, to go meeting with the research funder, who pays? Your Research Contract should set out whether any such expenses will be met by the funder. These expenses may be limited to specific expenses, such as travel to meetings with the funder. In those cases you may find that the types of travel, such as standard class rail or economy air fare, may be specified. n Payment Schedule It is important that, having set the funding, you know when it is going to be paid (made available) and that this ties in with your own cash flow commitments for the research. If you have to pay a research assistant before you have received the money from your funder, that involves additional cost to your institution. The timetable should set out when any instalments of the funding are to be paid. If they are not paid on those dates then the funder should have to pay interest in addition to compensate your institution. n Cost Variation You may cost your research meticulously, however over the period of a longer term contract things may change. The cost of research staff, for instance, may increase and this may be outside the control of you and your institution. If your Research Project requires the use of a substantial amount of titanium and the price of titanium on the world market increases substantially, then that could totally undermine your project costings. You should discuss these issues in advance with your funder to try and reach a reasonable compromise. This may be that your institution meets those costs up to a certain percentage increase e.g. 5%, and after that they are met by the third party funder. There may come a point at which the increase is so high that both participants have to consider whether the research should continue or the contract be terminated. If the contract is terminated for any reason, remember that your institution may have certain expenses to which it has already committed at the date of termination. These need to be addressed (see Section 11 – End of the Contract).