Staff and investigator costs - STFC

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Visiting researchers

Support may be requested within a grant proposal to provide funding for senior scientists from the UK or overseas who are of acknowledged standing to visit and work in the principal investigator’s institution for a period of up to twelve months.

Support may be requested for specified individual visitors and general support for unspecified (usually short-term) visitors. The support requested should be justified in the case for support.

STFC will only pay the salary of a visiting researcher for the time that they will be directly working on the project and requests should exclude any contributions from other sources. Visiting researchers should receive the same salary and conditions as other staff of an equivalent status within the research organisation. Costs should be requested as directly incurred.

Estates, infrastructure technician and indirect costs may only be requested for individual visits in excess of six months, regardless of whether the support being requested includes a salary contribution or is only travel and subsistence. Estates, infrastructure technician and indirect costs should only be requested for the time the visiting researcher will be directly working on the project and should not be requested if they are already funded (for example by another research grant to the visiting researcher’s home institution).

For visiting researchers, reasonable expenses will be paid for travel to and from the UK by the senior visiting scientist, but not for their families. Subsistence expenses should be related to the individual circumstances of each case and the rates appropriate for visiting workers within the host research organisation. The amount requested for the visit should be reduced if a contribution has been received from other sources – for example, where the visit will be partly funded by the visiting researcher’s own institution or is part of a longer stay.

Last updated: 17 August 2021

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