SSHRC will fund "salaries, stipends and related federal, provincial and institutional non-discretionary benefits for work performed by research personnel, support staff and other personnel (i.e., research associates, technicians)."
CIHR will fund "salaries and related federal, provincial and institutional non-discretionary benefits for work performed by research associates, research assistants, technicians and trainees being paid from a grant, e.g., undergraduate, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows. The rates of pay for research associates, research assistants and technicians shall be in accordance with the salary scale of the institution concerned."
It is important to decide whether you wish to fund students via a salary or a stipend. If you wish to fund a student to work part-time on your project, then it is appropriate to pay the student a salary. A graduate student can receive a stipend from a grant if the work they are doing is part of the student's training and comprises a thesis or a cognate academic requirement.
Rates:
Student Stipends
The Tri-Agencies do not dictate the amount of Master's, Doctoral, or Post-doctoral stipends; rather, the stipends must be in accordance with University of Saskatchewan policies. (Note: the following are minimum stipend values; however, you may choose to request higher stipends to attract top graduate students.)
The current rate on stipends for the University of Saskatchewan is 8.06%. It is advisable to include benefits in your budget because, if you don't, the University will take the money to pay for benefits out of your grant anyway. Please note that the benefit rate changes every January. With the benefits, your budget should include the following stipends for any graduate students you wish to fund:
Students who already hold a Master's scholarship, a doctoral award, or a postdoctoral fellowship from any of the Tri-Agencies canNOT be awarded a stipend from a grant as well. These students can, however, be paid a salary from your grant.
Student Salaries
If you wish to hire a student as a research assistant as opposed to funding their scholarships, what follows are the rates at which you must hire students. Please note that graduate students can work at most 12 hours a week to still be listed as a full time graduate student. These rates of pay are adjusted every May 1 and will be updated here on that date.
Effective May 1, 2013
Undergraduate (year 1) - $11.02/hour + benefits
Undergraduate (year 2) - $11.48/hour + benefits
Undergraduate (year 3) - $12.78/hour + benefits
Undergraduate (year 4) - $13.96/hour + benefits
Undergraduate (year 5) - $14.85/hour + benefits
Graduate student - $18.51/hour + benefits
To calculate the benefits, use the following numbers and equations:
| Mandatory Benefits | Rate |
| Canada Pension Plan (CPP) | 4.95% |
| Workers' Compensation (WC) | 0.49% |
| Employment Insurance (EI) | 2.63% |
| Vacation Pay - 3/52 (VP) | 5.769% |
| Statutory Holiday Pay | 3.8% |
Note: When paying students an hourly wage, you must include all 5 benefits (total of 17.63%), and to calculate the total benefits, you need to how many hours of work you wish your student to work.
Something to note for your budget justification:
Make sure you justify why employing a student at a particular level is necessary. If the work can be done by an undergraduate, do not indicate that a graduate student will do the work.
These include:
Overhead is not an allowable expense for SSHRC or CIHR.
If you are applying to a non-tri-council funding opportunity, it is advisable to include overhead in your budget. It is best to consult with the granting agency as well as with a Research Facilitator about the appropriate amount of overhead included.
The overhead amount for research grants from companies or the government is often 15% of the direct costs of research. For foundations, the amount is frequently 10% for the direct costs of research.
Overhead should also be included in all contract budgets. The regulations of the University state that in these instances overhead is to be negotiated by the lawyers in Research Services and not faculty members. For contract negotiations, please contact Kevin Rogers at 2207 or kevin. rogers@usask. ca.
It is imperative to distinguish between travel for research purposes and travel for communication purposes (e. g. , conference travel) when explaining your travel expenses in the budget justification.
According the to tri-council website, travel costs "include reasonable out-of-pocket expenses for field work, research conferences, collaborative trips, archival work, and historical research for the grantee, research personnel, students and colleagues working with the grantee, and visiting researchers."
Airfare
Make sure you budget for the average cost of an economy flight; you don’t want to budget too little and not have enough to cover the flight. It is also allowable to budget for flight cancellation insurance. For research personnel who do not receive travel health insurance, it is reasonable to buy travel health insurance policies for them.
Hotel
Again, make a reasonable estimate of what the hotel would actually cost.
Meals
The per diem rates of the University of Saskatchewan are as follows:
| In-Province | Out of Province | U. S. A. | |
| Breakfast | $8 | $11 | $11 |
| Lunch | $14 | $16 | $16 |
| Dinner | $19 | $24 | $24 |
| Total | $41 | $51 | $51 |
per diem rates for international travel
Note: If your hotel room comes with breakfast, you cannot include breakfast in your per diem as well.
Mileage
Kilometric Rates (effective July 1, 2012)
| Basic vehicle travel | $0.4134/km |
| Special vehicle travel north of 54th parallel | $0.4325/km |
Taxes: The university will continue to recover GST paid at the rate of 67%. Accordingly, the new net GST cost will be 1. 65% (down from 1. 98%). With PST the total tax would be 6. 65%.
I would suggest to also include costs for sharing the results outside of academia (end users, educators, practitioners, policy makers, etc. ). SSHRC has taken a very strong stance on not just communicating to the “academic community” through conferences and peer reviewed journal articles. I would recommend being creative on areas in which you could communicate your findings to the “end user. ”Consider, for instance, requesting funds to disseminate to the public via CDs/DVDs, brochures, drama plays, general public meetings/lectures within the community, or documentaries.
General Office supplies such as pens, paper, and ink cartridges are ineligible unless they are justified by some of the research tasks included in your grant (i. e. that additional supplies and printing costs are required to conduct surveys). For a detailed list of eligible and ineligible office supplies and stationary, please consult the Tri-Council Use of Grant Funds.
SSHRC and CIHR will only fund equipment that is not normally supplied by the university.
Computer Equipment
Justify why you need a computer; it is not enough to list it as a cost, but make it clear why a new machine is instrumental to the success of your research. State too why the hardware or software supplied by the university is inadequate to your research needs. Request a quote for hardware or software.
Release time for faculty is not a permitted expenditure for SSHRC. For the Partnership Grant competition you are able to budget for release time for individuals from your non-academic organizational partners. CIHR competitions will state specifically whether Release Time Stipends are eligible.
Computer Hardware/Software Quotes
Transcription Services - $25/hour
Translation from English to French - 25 cents a word
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