It just came to my attention that I neglected to account for the January 1, 2008 drop in the GST rate (to 5%) in the budget portion of the NSERC Discovery Grant Help Guide.

The non-refundable portion of GST is 1.65% (not 1.98%). Make sure to account for this tax in equipment purchases. It is a small, but real cost for equipment purchase (where costs are generally detailed) and can add up to significant sums on large purchases.

I’ll am undecided if I will revise the guide to incorporate this change, if I do – I will post a revised version on this blog.

Izabella Laba recently discussed how an average Discovery grant in mathematics is spent in her blog. This discussion is very interesting as it gives some perspective on how challenging it can be to fund research in mathematics.

One helpful resource for a “ballpark” award amount is looking at the average awards for the GSC in previous competitions. The 2008 competition results are available here, slide 37 to 42. There is a lot of information in these slides. If you can take the time to attend the presentations of these slides at your institution (2008 Info Sessions) – do it! You’ll glean many tidbits of information from the NSERC speakers.

You can also contact your research services office to obtain information on the average awards for your GSC for your institution. Some institutions have better record keeping than others and may not be able to calculate this rapidly (or at all). Your department may also keep records. If you have the time and are very curious, you can also access the NSERC Awards Search Engine and calculate the stats yourself.

Setting up your Discovery grant budget can be daunting. What is eligible? What isn’t? How to begin? For the first time applicant, it is important to talk to your colleagues to determine what they spend on common items in your field. Getting this set of “rules of thumb” helps to determine what a reasonable budget request might be. Watch for future posts on discipline-specific budget rules of thumb.

Recently, NSERC announced that they will be instituting a minimum Discovery grant award in this competition. This minimum funding amount is $15k per annum.

There are several ways to approach setting a budget. My preferred strategy is to ask for what you NEED to do the research you have outlined in your proposal. Of course, the request must be in context with the stage of development of the lab, the applicant’s demonstrated research management skills, and the field of study. A biomedical researcher can get away with a materials and supplies request in the tens of thousands range, whereas a theoretical physicist probably will not. Generating a reasonable budget that is linked to the research is an important means of demonstrating the need for funds and science management skill of the researcher. Grants are now scored for relative research cost as low, medium or high for the particular topic area.

I’ll be posting more budget relevant information over the next few days.