PBA Home > Institutional Research & Analysis > Faculty and Staff  > Research expenditures and awards by departments > Comparing methods of allocating expenditures from research institutes to instructional departments

Research expenditures
Comparing methods of allocating expenditures from research institutes to instructional departments

Since 2002, PBA has allocated research expenditures from institutes to instructional departments. The method A was used up until 2006. Method B was used first in the May 2007 posting, applied to all years FY 2000 - 20006.

Method A

• Allocated money out of the research institutes only.
• Based on a list of faculty members in the institute, with expenditures allocated proportionately. Researchers in the institutes not in an instructional department did not get factored in.
• 100% of all expenditures were allocated out of the institutes.
• Example: An institute has 50 researchers, 10 of whom are faculty members in an instructional department. Seven are in psychology, two in sociology and one in history. The institute had $20 million in research expenditures. Therefore, $14 million gets allocated to psychology (since 70% of the faculty members are in psychology), $4 million to sociology and $1 million to history.

Method B

• Allocating money out of the research institutes AND administrative units (i.e. academic affairs)
• Based on the tenure department of the principal investigator (PI) on an individual project. The money is not allocated if the PI of a project is NOT rostered in a tenure department. Therefore, not all of the money is being allocated out of the institutes and administrative units. For FY 2006 51% of the $153 million expenditures in research institutes and administrative units was allocated; 49% was not. PIs not in tenure departments are generally research associates, senior RAs, or research professors rostered only in institutes.
• Multiple PIs are also accounted for. An individual project could have money going to two different departments. However, there are not many projects listed with multiple PIs.
• Example: The tenure department of the PI in a project in an institute is psychology. All of the research expenditures for that project are being allocated to psychology.

Comparison of the methods

• Method B leaves about half of research-institute expenditures unallocated, while Method A allocates 100%. It is surely unrealistic to say that 100% of institute expenditures 'really' have some connection to a single academic or instructional department. However, it may be that much of the funding unallocated in Method B is actually connected with one of more academic departments. We just cannot tell.
• Method B is of course entirely determined by who is listed as PI and what the listed tenure-locus department is of those individuals. The allocation for Electrical and Computer Engineering for FY 2003-04 is $2.9 million with method A, $20.9 million with method B – because Susan Avery was director of CIRES and PI on very large CIRES grants, with tenure locus in Electrical and Computer Engineering. To the extent that many other researchers were active under those grants, from several departments, the Method B allocation is unrealistic.
• All in all, neither method is very good. All postings show both allocated and unallocated/raw/direct expenditures. Use the allocated at your own risk.

The tables below compare methods A & B for research expenditures from FY 2003-04

Department by institute tables: Method A   Method B

Questions? E-mail IR@Colorado.edu

Run Date 05/29/2007 -- L:\datalib\Depts\Rsrch\Alloc_compare.sas

Last revision 07/24/09