Supporting research through the recovery of indirect costs

To Faculty, Staff & Student Employees at UBC Vancouver and Okanagan:

Researchers at UBC and its affiliated teaching hospitals have been increasingly successful in attracting research funding from a vast array of partners. As a result of their endeavours, our research budget has tripled in little more than a decade to more than $500m annually, and UBC is recognized as a leading global research institution.

Building a community of scholars requires that we operate and maintain the facilities required by our researchers, and that we provide them with the academic, IT, administrative and research support infrastructure they need. All of these ongoing costs are indirect costs of research, not wholly attributable to individual research projects.

With our research success comes greater demand on this infrastructure to support the increased volume and complexity of these research activities. For research to be sustainable, with faculties, departments and central administration all able to provide researchers with the necessary support, it is imperative that the full cost of research is recovered.

It is therefore with the full support of the University Executive that we focus on recovering more of our indirect costs of research. While the UBC Policy #87 remains unchanged, procedural changes are being implemented, and these will be communicated to you in detail by the Vice President Research & International, the Provost and Vice President Academic and the Vice President Development and Alumni Engagement over the coming days. For information about Indirect Costs of Research, please see www.research.ubc.ca/indirect-costs.

I am fully in support of this initiative, as increasing our level of indirect cost recovery will allow UBC and our affiliated teaching hospitals to provide our researchers with the necessary infrastructure and support they need to both attract research funding and facilitate their research and scholarship, and ensure that their activities can have the optimal impact on our local, national and global communities.

Stephen J. Toope,

President and Vice-Chancellor