Costing

RSE time is typically funded via internal or external grants, not through overheads. Most UKRI funders are aware of the role of RSEs and actively encourage their deployment on grants.

RSE costing (grant-funded)

Outside of the free activities which we organise, RSE time must be paid for from internal or external sources. In many cases this will require you to budget for RSE time as part of your grant application. The RSE Team can assist with this and advise as to what is appropriate for your needs. Enquiries should be made to rse@sheffield.ac.uk.

We can provide staffing for your grants (charged as ‘directly incurred’ costs) for anything from 1 day to 50% of a FTE, although provision of an RSE is subject to availability and as such enquiries must be made before grant submission to allow us to schedule our staff resources.

If you require a dedicated 100% role for your team or project then you should recruit this directly. We can help you with this by assisting with recruitment and by supporting your RSE within the Sheffield RSE community.

RSE “service” costing

If you require paid RSE support which cannot be budgeted into a research grant then we provide a different mechanism for buying RSE support. In this case we charge an internal RSE “service” day rate of £384 for internal grants and £665+VAT for external partners and industry.

The service rate is based on an average cost of an RSE in our team and has a faculty administration cost.

Contributing to the RSE team (underwriting a RSE role)

If you have a considerable requirement for RSE staff you may consider underwriting an RSE staff member with the team. By doing so you will ensure that a member of staff will exist with the specific skills which you require for your research. You will also be given the opportunity to join our strategy group to influence how free RSE time should be allocated. Underwriting a post does not guarantee that the staff member will be available to you 100% of the time. The staff member will be costed onto grants (benefiting you and your research group) in the normal way. Our method of cost recovery will allow us to recover up to 75% of the staff costs which will be reimbursed annually. Cost recovery will be reported on at each RSE strategy group meeting which you will be invited to attend as a contributor to the group. Examples of current contributors include The Department of Computer Science and IT Services.