Co-investigators are not permitted in fellowships applications. Where required (and if the terms of the fellowship allow) support for researchers, technicians and other staff may be requested. Support for students may not be requested.
Clinical research training fellowship applicants should not request staff costs. In exceptional circumstances where the delivery of the project requires the incurrence of additional staff costs, these must be requested within the £20,000 per year research training support grant (RTSG) and the need for additional staff must be fully detailed in the justification of resources (section 3.2.4).
The salary requested for each member of staff should reflect the full anticipated cost during the lifetime of the award, including any anticipated promotions and salary increments to ensure that the costs requested are as accurate as possible. Indexation should not be included as this is calculated post-award. Once the grant is awarded, no additional requests can be made for supplementary salary costs. CVs should be attached to the application for any named researchers; named technicians and other staff do not need to provide a CV.
Sponsors and supervisors are not expected to request funds to support their time as part of a postdoctoral fellow’s application. In exceptional circumstances this may be appropriate; if requested, their contribution to the project should be detailed in the justification of resources and the request should not exceed 5% of their time (or a total of 5% FTE across all sponsor/supervisors if more than one is named). The associated cost should be entered as a directly allocated researcher cost. Clinical research training fellowship applicants may request costs to support supervisors’ time or PhD fees but not both. In either case the request must be within the £20,000 per year limit (see section 3.1.11.2 for details).
Staff may be entered as directly incurred and directly allocated. The salary of any staff whose contribution to the project can be supported by an auditable record for the duration of the fellowship should be requested as directly incurred. Any directly incurred staff (whether full or part-time) who are not contracted to work 100% of their time on the fellowship project will be required to maintain timesheets or project records for auditing purposes. Funding for staff whose time will not be exclusively dedicated to the project and whose contribution will not be supported by an auditable record should be entered as directly allocated.
Fellows planning to spend time at a second centre overseas may request support for 100% of the cost associated with any overseas staff salaries. Please refer to section 3.3 of the guidance for applicants and email RFPD@mrc.ukri.org for advice on requesting exceptional costs.