Reconciling Budgets for Multiple Dissertation Fieldwork Grants (Wenner-Gren, NSF, SSRC)

[saveagemind]

Does anyone have tips on the best ways to reconcile multiple grants so that someone can keep the most money from 2 or more grants?

[juilletmercredi]

Do you mean research fellowships for graduate students?  I'm assuming you do since you name SSRC and NSF.

 

It really depends on the individual fellowships, their rules, and where they come from.  One big rule is that you cannot hold two federally-funded fellowships at the same time.  So, for example, you can't receive funds from NDSEG and NSF at the same time - although you can be a fellow from both at the same time.

 

NSF GRFP, for example, allows you to place the funds on reserve for up to two years.  You have 5 years to use the entire 3 years of money.  NDSEG does not allow ANY deferrals, and is also 3 years.  So what if you get an NSF and an NDSEG at the same time?  Usually you'd put NSF on reserve for 2 years while taking the NDSEG.  Then you would decide which one to forfeit one year of.  In the old days, you would forfeit a year of NSF and take the third year of the NDSEG because it was more money, but now the NSF is slightly more money (just slightly - an extra $500 a year).  But the NDSEG also covers your health insurance and all mandatory fees; the NSF requires your institution to do so.  So it would really be a decision on your part (and your department's).  After that third year, you'd spend the next two years on NSF.

 

Dissertation grants are the same.  You can't use two federal sources at the same time for your stipend, IIRC, but you could potentially use SSRC and NSF DDRIG (or whatever they are called now) at the same time.  The SSRC grant is for proposal development anyway, and would generally be taken sometime in years 3-4 while you are working on your proposal; the NSF one would be more sometime in years 4-6 when you're actually working on the dissertation itself.  But let's say you got an NIH R36 and then an NSF DDRIG, I don't think you can take both nor can you defer them, so you'd need to decline one.

 

Basically...it really depends on the individual grants.

[TakeruK]

In addition to what julletmercredi says, you can also go to your department administration for help (depending on how your department is structured and/or how the grants are paid, it might be a better idea to go to your advisor who can then ask the right admin staff person for help). Department admin staff are trained in doing things like this for the professors' grants all the time, so they probably know the ins and outs of each granting agency pretty well. It's also in the department's best interest for you to get to keep as much money as possible since that means you'll cost them less, so I'd imagine they would be glad to help out. In my current program, we just provide all the relevant information about the grant(s) we may have and the department admin staff sorts it all out and makes sure our total take home stipend is correct (especially for grants that don't fully cover our stipend).

[saveagemind]

Thanks, all.

[rising_star]

Dissertation grants are the same.  You can't use two federal sources at the same time for your stipend, IIRC, but you could potentially use SSRC and NSF DDRIG (or whatever they are called now) at the same time.  The SSRC grant is for proposal development anyway, and would generally be taken sometime in years 3-4 while you are working on your proposal; the NSF one would be more sometime in years 4-6 when you're actually working on the dissertation itself.  But let's say you got an NIH R36 and then an NSF DDRIG, I don't think you can take both nor can you defer them, so you'd need to decline one.

 

Basically...it really depends on the individual grants.

 

Actually, that would depend on the SSRC grant. There are grants from SSRC to fund 9-12 months of international dissertation fieldwork/research. I'm assuming that's what the OP means rather than the SSRC dissertation proposal development program.

 

OP, the advice to talk to the department's admin is spot-on. In addition, if there's a grants person in the grad college, talk to them as well. But, if you're working out budgets for submission, you write each grant's budget assuming that you will not get any other grants. That is, your Wenner-Gren budget is based solely on what your project needs and not any possibilities of getting a second dissertation grant. If and when you get two dissertation research grants, then you work with your budget/grants person internally and communicate with all funders about what you want to do. I know a few different options for handling that situation. One is to spend longer in the field. Another is to ask if either or both funders will allow you to use some of the money for support while writing your dissertation up at home, writing it while in the field, or for a return trip to the field. In some cases, people do have to not accept one of the grants but usually there's a way to avoid that. I had multiple dissertation research grants and negotiated with one of the funders (one was non-negotiable basically except for the start date) to fund a semester of time to write up results and a follow up trip to the field.

[ADDABD]

Ya know, I don't think of myself as a generally comment-y kind of person and I've only ever commented on this site for utilitarian grant-getting purposes. But I have to say, in the gentlest way posible, that this question and rising_star's response seem...questionable to me. I know that grad school is not an arena in which solidarity is privileged, given that jobs are pretty much a zero-sum game. But I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of gaming the grant system to use money for a purpose for which it wasn't really intended, particularly when (as a cursory reading of academic comment boards shows), declined grants go to alternates who badly need them to just do the research, much less fund write-up. As someone who only got one fieldwork grant, I fortunately or unfortunately didn't face this dilemma, and I'm not sure how I would have responded.  But I'd like to think I would have considered perhaps declining it, or at least greatly reducing the amount if my research was already fully-funded, and putting the declined fellowship on my CV. I'm not saying I would have done this--extra money is always good--but I hope I'd have considered it.

I don't know, maybe I'm just grumpy from beating my head against the near-impossible ACLS process for the last month and a half, and already angrily thinking of people who are gonna get the ACLS and some other grants too. It's a f-ed up system, but it's still worth thinking about how we deal with it vis a vis our nominal compatriots-in-underfunding.

Edited October 22, 2014 by ADDABD

[TakeruK]

Ya know, I don't think of myself as a generally comment-y kind of person and I've only ever commented on this site for utilitarian grant-getting purposes. But I have to say, in the gentlest way posible, that this question and rising_star's response seem...questionable to me. I know that grad school is not an arena in which solidarity is privileged, given that jobs are pretty much a zero-sum game. But I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of gaming the grant system to use money for a purpose for which it wasn't really intended, particularly when (as a cursory reading of academic comment boards shows), declined grants go to alternates who badly need them to just do the research, much less fund write-up. As someone who only got one fieldwork grant, I fortunately or unfortunately didn't face this dilemma, and I'm not sure how I would have responded.  But I'd like to think I would have considered perhaps declining it, or at least greatly reducing the amount if my research was already fully-funded, and putting the declined fellowship on my CV. I'm not saying I would have done this--extra money is always good--but I hope I'd have considered it.

I don't know, maybe I'm just grumpy from beating my head against the near-impossible ACLS process for the last month and a half, and already angrily thinking of people who are gonna get the ACLS and some other grants too. It's a f-ed up system, but it's still worth thinking about how we deal with it vis a vis our nominal compatriots-in-underfunding.

 

I agree with rising_star that you write grant requests on the assumption that the money you are requesting is the only money you'll get. It would be terrible practice for both granting agencies and students/researchers if everyone was expected to write fractional grant requests all the time. For example, I might be eligible for funding from two agencies--does that mean I should write two half-grants? Definitely not!

 

However, if I did get money from both grants, then I would follow the rules of both agencies that allow/disallow holding multiple simultaneous grants. In addition, I would definitely not try to claim grant money for the same expense from two different agencies. But I think that is all of the consideration that is really required, in my opinion, to ensure one is acting ethically. 

 

Otherwise, what you are saying is that students who are fully funded should never apply for grants to reduce the financial burden from their supervisor/schools. I don't think this is how the funding structure should work -- students should always first strive to find as much money as they can from external grants/funding sources and then supplement that funding, if possible and if necessary, from internal sources within their school/program.

[ADDABD]

Yeah, I'm not disputing any of those points. And I'm not trying to get on anyone's case--completely understandable to maximize your return on those hard-won grants. I just think it's worth considering this situation as an ethical as well as a pragmatic one, at least in a situation where, as the OP stated, you have multiple grants covering the same exact thing.

In any event, perhaps it's not the most tactful thing on a comment board where most people won't be getting grants (given the success rate of most major grants), to ask how to get the most money out of the multiple grants you'll be accepting such that alternates won't then get that money.

Edited October 22, 2014 by ADDABD

[TakeruK]

Yeah, I'm not disputing any of those points. And I'm not trying to get on anyone's case--completely understandable to maximize your return on those hard-won grants. I just think it's worth considering this situation as an ethical as well as a pragmatic one, at least in a situation where, as the OP stated, you have multiple grants covering the same exact thing.

In any event, perhaps it's not the most tactful thing on a comment board where most people won't be getting grants (given the success rate of most major grants), to ask how to get the most money out of the multiple grants you'll be accepting such that alternates won't then get that money.

 

I don't think it's inappropriate to ask about how to ethically and legally get the most money out of multiple grants at all. This is something that academics have to often figure out anyways and something that is appropriate to actually try and do. In contrast, I've seen people post other questions like "How do I secretly accept two grad school offers at the same time" etc. while there are others still waiting for one offer. I think that is inappropriate because it's not something that you can actually achieve.

 

On the other hand, if you can use funding from more than one grant in order to meet your proposed research goals, then you should go ahead and do that. juilletmercredi already covered the issues with paying yourself from multiple grants, but there are many things that you can use grant money for that won't be duplicate expenses. For example, in the grant application, you might have only wrote a budget for travel to one conference but if you end up getting more than one grant that funds conference travel, you can present your research at more conferences. Or, having more money available might mean you can expand your experiment/fieldwork etc. I think this is a legitimate use of grant money (as long as the conditions of the grant allow it).

 

I agree that as researchers and academics, we should always think about the ethical concerns of our actions. But your comment seems to imply that not only we should think about it, but also that even trying to get more than one grant is "questionable". My response is that the only ethics we should worry about is that we do not commit fraud in applying for multiple grants and that we fully disclose our grant sources (i.e. don't try to hide grant money from an agency that does not allow you to accept other grant money).

 

However, I do not think that the consequence that someone will not get a grant if another person is able to accept two grants is an ethical problem. Or, more precisely, I don't think that should be a concern when it comes to accepting grant money. Instead, I think this should be a concern at the granting agency level. If the granting agency wants to make sure they are granting money to academics that need it, then they should impose more conditions on their grant money (i.e. limit other sources of money). And if the community believes this is the way grants should work, then the community should pressure granting agencies to change their policies to this way. 

 

For this last part, I do agree with ADDABD. I am not convinced that merit-based funding is the best, because there are a lot of things tied into "merit" as measured by granting agencies. For example, those with access to better resources tend to be able to do better research, and thus appear to have more "merit" and then will get more grants than those who don't, and the effect can snowball. However, I have no experience or knowledge to try to come up with a solution. But I don't think turning down grants so that others can get it instead will actually fix anything.

[ADDABD]

OK, I guess I'm not making myself clear. You say:

 

"I don't think it's inappropriate to ask about how to ethically and legally get the most money out of multiple grants at all. This is something that academics have to often figure out anyways and something that is appropriate to actually try and do. In contrast, I've seen people post other questions like "How do I secretly accept two grad school offers at the same time" etc. while there are others still waiting for one offer. I think that is inappropriate because it's not something that you can actually achieve."

 

I'm the one asking about ethics. The OP was simply asking how to maximize her or his returns. And basing 'appropriateness' on 'achievablility' is not an ethical stance at all--it's a pragmatic one.

 

You say:

"I agree that as researchers and academics, we should always think about the ethical concerns of our actions. But your comment seems to imply that not only we should think about it, but also that even trying to get more than one grant is "questionable". My response is that the only ethics we should worry about is that we do not commit fraud in applying for multiple grants and that we fully disclose our grant sources (i.e. don't try to hide grant money from an agency that does not allow you to accept other grant money)."

 

Again, I have applied for multiple grants. I have no problem with that, or with using all the grant money you can get for legit stuff as above. I'm saying, perhaps there's a broader definition of ethics than the legal one of fraud.  I know one fellow in my department that got 3 fieldwork grants, gamed them to get some 90k for a year of research, and spent the rest on write-up, personal travel, etc. This is ethically questionable, at best, to me. Perhaps this isn't what the OP had in mind, but then again, maybe it is. The advice veers fairly close to this kind of attitude.

 

I agree with your last two paragraphs. Merit doesn't just measure hard work, although it does measure that too. And of course, a huge part of grad school is being enculturated into the specific ethos of the academy (which I think we all understand as basically, 'dog-eat-dog').  It just bothers me to see it play out on a nominally supportive grad forum, particularly without any consideration of the broader structures of granting and where the money goes. 

 

Another way to state this is, the only thing that makes me uncomfortable here is the idea (that I'm imputing) of manipulating funding intended to cover one vital realm of grad work ('fieldwork') into covering others for which there is usually more support available.

 

But that's way more than I meant to say on this topic, and I'll just leave it alone now. 

[saveagemind]

To be clear, I was asking about legitimate use of multiple grants, since we don't know when we apply if we will get any of them funded, much less more than one. Also: as multiple people have pointed out, granting agencies like NSF, Wenner-Gren, SSRC, etc. already have rules and procedures so that you don't use two sources for the same expenses at the same time (most of them actually work with your budgets directly to help you figure out legitimate ways to use funding from more than one source if you secure it). In my case, I found out about one grant before another (both submitted during the same period), and then am now submitting for a third, which will cover some areas of the research that the others would not. Unless you flat-out lie, none of these funders are going to give you the full amount of the grant for the same project if you already secured funding from someone else; instead, they might give you a few thousand, particularly if they have different internal rules about what's covered (e.g., some funders pay for insurance and some don't; either way, it's good to have insurance). The fact is, that particularly for people doing research in expensive places like Western Europe, the maximum that any of these grants gives you on its own is not nearly enough to actually live and do research; budgets must therefore be artificially low to make a case for feasibility. Additionally, there are legitimate reasons to expand the scope of your project, do comparative work, etc. I hear the ethical argument at a broader level, but in this specific case I don't think there are any ethical issues with applying to multiple grants and if one is lucky enough to get more than one, proposing an honest and reasonable project that could benefit from multiple funders. At the end of the day, the decision is up to the funders and they are not idiots: they can generally differentiate between a legitimate, feasible proposal and one that is purely constructed to secure more money.

Edited October 23, 2014 by saveagemind

[TakeruK]

Another way to state this is, the only thing that makes me uncomfortable here is the idea (that I'm imputing) of manipulating funding intended to cover one vital realm of grad work ('fieldwork') into covering others for which there is usually more support available.

 

But that's way more than I meant to say on this topic, and I'll just leave it alone now. 

 

I think we're on the same page here! Sorry for earlier misunderstanding. I am used to grants that have clear budgets that strictly delineates what money can be used for what. For example, I might write a research grant that funds, for example:

 

$2,000 for travel support to "fieldwork" (in my field, this pays for travel, accommodations and other expenses to use a telescope)

$1,000 for one conference trip

$1,500 for computing equipment

 

If, for some reason, I get more than one of these funded, I would not be allowed to, for example, use the second grant's fieldwork travel support money to buy even more computing equipment. Since telescope time is usually fixed, I would basically either 1) charge half of the fieldwork costs to each grant or 2) only charge fieldwork to a single grant, depending on what the best practices are for the two grants in question. I also would not be using the second grant's computing equipment allowance unless I can make a justifiable case for needing even more computers. However, I might be able to use the conference travel money from the second grant to present my results at two conferences instead of just one. Of course, I would not just do this just because I can--I would still consider whether or not it makes sense to present the results more than once.

 

Or, here's another example: let's say tuition is $40,000/year and you are applying for grants that cover tuition support only. You receive two grants:

Grant A pays $30,000/year but comes with the condition that you cannot accept other grants for tuition valued at more than $15,000/year.

Grant B pays $20,000/year and has no conditions on other sources of money.

 

My original advice above to work with secretaries/admin people who are trained in working with grants to "maximize return" would end up with something like the student accepting the full value of Grant A and only $10,000 from Grant B so that all required conditions are met and the student is fully funded. In this contrived case, the answer is simple, but in reality, grants can have a lot more complicated conditions and there may be other factors like whether or not your supervisor is paying you out of their grant (which might also come with other stipulations). If the student tried to game the system in some way to receive $50,000 of money meant for tuition support but only use $40,000 on tuition support (and pocket the other $10,000 or whatever), then I definitely agree that it's unethical! But I don't think it's an ethical dilemma at all to choose between only accepting Grant A (and only getting $30,000 of tuition support because Grant B pays too much) or working with people who know grant policy so that you can accept both grants to pay the entire $40,000 in tuition.

 

Hope this is more clear? I do not think one should propose for and receive money for one thing, but then use it for something else later in order to maximize returns. But if you do get more money granted, then I don't think it's a problem to use more money to do more science/research that is in line with what you proposed for originally, nor is it a problem / gaming the system if you combined grants that don't fully cover expenses in order to get a total sum of money that does cover all required expenses.

[fuzzylogician]

Again, I have applied for multiple grants. I have no problem with that, or with using all the grant money you can get for legit stuff as above. I'm saying, perhaps there's a broader definition of ethics than the legal one of fraud.  I know one fellow in my department that got 3 fieldwork grants, gamed them to get some 90k for a year of research, and spent the rest on write-up, personal travel, etc. This is ethically questionable, at best, to me. Perhaps this isn't what the OP had in mind, but then again, maybe it is. The advice veers fairly close to this kind of attitude.

 

I agree with your last two paragraphs. Merit doesn't just measure hard work, although it does measure that too. And of course, a huge part of grad school is being enculturated into the specific ethos of the academy (which I think we all understand as basically, 'dog-eat-dog').  It just bothers me to see it play out on a nominally supportive grad forum, particularly without any consideration of the broader structures of granting and where the money goes. 

 

Another way to state this is, the only thing that makes me uncomfortable here is the idea (that I'm imputing) of manipulating funding intended to cover one vital realm of grad work ('fieldwork') into covering others for which there is usually more support available.

 

We're talking about negotiating with the granting agencies and finding ways to use these hard won funds, not about deceiving anyone. If they agree to split costs so that one grant covers time in the field and the other covers write-up time and a follow-up trip (or any other arrangement) and it's all on the up and up, I don't see anything immoral here. We are talking about honestly won grants/fellowships and an honest conversation with the granting agencies about how those funds should be used. Of course there would have to be some readjustments of the budget, since we write the budget for each grant as if it's the only one we'll get--and everyone agrees that's how it should be; we don't want to have to write multiple grants based on many what-if scenarios where we win multiple grants. If a granting agency agrees to change the allocation of some funds, then all is good. rising_star wasn't suggesting that you use the money for personal travel or other unauthorized expenses, so I don't see how this criticism is relevant. 

[rising_star]

ADDABD, I think what you're implying is that what I did isn't ethical. But, considering that I negotiated with the people funding me directly after consulting with my department's grants person, I think it was. They knew I was planning to use one grant almost exclusively for the first part of the time in my field and then use the other to be able to write up my results and analyze data. This mattered because in my grad dept, those in the writing stage were instructor of record for undergraduate courses of 50-70 students, which is a lot of course prep and grading. The write-up money I took out of that grant was the exact same monthly salary I would've received as a TA plus health insurance since that was no longer covered. Everyone involved thought this was fair (my advisor, the dept chair, the grants person internally, and the funders). So, I'm not sure why that would be considered unethical.

 

Also, let while I don't get to decide who gives me money and when, I do get to make decisions about what to do with it. I have a friend that got two fieldwork grants and decided to expand on her original project and do more data collection. Again, she asked for permission from the funders and received. A lot of times, especially if one of the grants isn't federal, people are willing to be flexible. More time in the field as a grad student is rarely a bad thing since it's also one of the only times in your career you'll be able to go into the field for months on end.

[ADDABD]

Saveagemind and TakeruK's last posts strike me as completely reasonable. I retract any criticism from what they did or advocated based on their further info. Rising_star, having dealt with two fieldwork granting agencies, and having been in a fieldwork-oriented program for 6 years, and having helped and talked with many friends who also dealt with them, I find it amazing that you got one to fund something that they knew wasn't fieldwork at all.  I've never heard of such a thing, but it's definitely enviable. I have heard frequently of being able to expand, extend, or more comfortably fund fieldwork, which is obviously a different situation.

 

The only place I'm going to stand my ground is on the defintion of ethical in this situation, which I understand as being something different than 'allowed' or 'legal.' Here's why: the fact that everyone involved gave you their blessing means that you got to spend a fieldwork grant on write-up rather than fieldwork, which is awesome.  It also means that someone else (an alternate, let's say, for the fieldwork grant you used for write-up) maybe didn't get to do funded fieldwork at all, which is bad. That's life. I get that write-up is really hard (doing it right now), especially with a teaching load (dealing with that too).  And, honestly, I'm not condemning you at all for doing this, but that's different from agreeing that it's, you know, in line with the categorical imperative. I would probably do it too, but only because I don't see any other good options, not because I'm deeply convinced that it's ethically unimpeachable. I say this because, if I were an alternate for a fieldwork grant, and I found out that the grant I badly needed to fund research went to fund someone to do write-up when they'd already done funded research, I'd be pissed. That's all I'm saying--we're involved in a broader system which includes our struggling colleagues, and we should think about that.

 

In any event, I really didn't start this thread to criticize people, I just thought it was worth thinking about these grants in a more structural way, particularly on a comment board like this one where we mostly try to help each other out.  But obviously, and as TakeruK pointed out a few comments back, this criticism is more appropriately directed at the broader funding structure of grad education (admittedly a vague and invulnerable target for my criticism), rather than at people like Rising_star who are acting completely logically--and with the obvious blessing of administrators--given the options available. That's my bad.

Edited October 24, 2014 by ADDABD

[rising_star]

ADDABD, I should have clarified. One of my grants was for "dissertation research" and there was no requirement that it be used for fieldwork. Rather, it was meant to provide support for one's dissertation research, however that was defined. They also didn't produce a list of alternates or honorable mentions. Had I declined those funds, they would not have been awarded to someone else (I asked someone that had previously served on the fellowship review committee before making any decisions about what I would do). I guess what you're saying is the ethical thing to do would've been to let the organization keep those funds and hope that they awarded an additional fellowship in a subsequent year with the money I didn't accept?

 

If you want to talk about the structural system, that's fine. We should have that conversation. Graduate programs should have that conversation with their students. I think at the faculty level that conversation may be beginning to happen given that the rate of success for NIH and NSF grants is declining as more people apply and the organizational budgets decrease. That said, I went into my field knowing what the expectations for fieldwork were, not just in the discipline but also of my advisor. I changed topics a few times, in part because I wasn't sure if I could get funding for some of the topics or they weren't feasible for various personal reasons. That is also part of the structure of graduate education. I was lucky in the sense that it all worked out for me in the end but now, looking at job ads for the past few years, I find myself sometimes wishing I'd stuck with my original topic and interests.

 

It would be great if graduate programs had the funding available for students to do fieldwork. And I mean all graduate programs, not just those at private institutions (I went to a public university but considered going to a private one in part because of the summer and fieldwork funding available). In my own grad department, there were several conversations about the teaching load for those ABD but, because of the broader budget at the university, there really wasn't a way to lighten that teaching load unfortunately. Which basically put grad students in the same position as faculty: needing to get a grant to buy out that teaching time. The solution is probably to decrease the size of graduate programs to be quite honest. But, I doubt that's in the cards.

[ADDABD]

Well, I'll try one more time to be clear about what I'm questioning, quoting my earlier published work for reference (every academic's dream):

 

"Another way to state this is, the only thing that makes me uncomfortable here is the idea (that I'm imputing) of manipulating funding intended to cover one vital realm of grad work ('fieldwork') into covering others for which there is usually more support available (ABD, ADD. "Procrastinating on Dissertation on Comments Board" A Google Server In Indonesia: 2014)."

 

In the very originalest post, Saveagemind asked about three 'fieldwork research only' grants (we're both anthropologists, I'm familiar with these grants).  She or he asked how to maximize the return by writing a good budget, and later clarified by saying it was with the intention of legit research expenses.  I have no problem with any of that. Some of the advice veered towards the 'maximize your ability to do later non-fieldwork work' stuff, which is different.

 

That would be unethical, but not uncommon, for two reasons:

1.  The things that win one grant appeal to other granting agencies, so a lot of successful grantees get multiple grants. 

2. Grad students are incentivized to maximize all possible monies (hard to get, uncertain futures, underpaid anyway, stupid funding structure, not enough jobs and too many grad students)

 

So a lot of students are faced with this enviable dilemma.  In my time in grad programs, I have seen a number of people (friends) do things that were within the letter of the law to maximize funding from multiple sources for the same research, but in fact (knowingly) exceeded what they actually needed. They did this with the independent blessing of the grant organizations, who obviously are not on the phone with one another, but rely on submitted budgets. I find this common practice sketchy for the ethical reasons I hope I've outlined in these very excessive posts.

 

Rising_star, with the clarification you gave, I obviously am not directing this at you. And you're probably in a different field, so didn't know those three grants were very specifically fieldwork grants. And despite all the caveats in my earlier posts, I do find the common scenario I'm describing to be unethical.  I'm glad to hear no one on this comment board actually did or would consider doing it.

[TakeruK]

So a lot of students are faced with this enviable dilemma.  In my time in grad programs, I have seen a number of people (friends) do things that were within the letter of the law to maximize funding from multiple sources for the same research, but in fact (knowingly) exceeded what they actually needed. They did this with the independent blessing of the grant organizations, who obviously are not on the phone with one another, but rely on submitted budgets. I find this common practice sketchy for the ethical reasons I hope I've outlined in these very excessive posts.

 

I agree with the main sentiment, but I think there are a lot of situations where this won't be so black and white. I picked my above examples to be a simple case, but some grants are rather complex. Here is a counterexample. That is, I think the following scenario would count as "sketchy" to you, but would be completely ethical, to me. (Note: I use my personal example because I know the details well, but this could apply to a number of students, and I won't take it personally if you disagree with my evaluation that this is ethical; my opinion is that ethics is subjective but I'd be interested to hear what you think):

 

I have currently have a Canadian fellowship that supports me as a student, not for any particular work. I wrote a research proposal in order to win this money but then went on to do a completely different project (in the same field). The only requirement was that I inform the granting agency about my change in project and as long as it fits within "Physics and Astronomy", it's all good. This is an example of a fellowship/grant where the funding agency believes in my ability as a student/researcher and is funding me, not for any particular research. In addition, this funding agency has no restrictions on outside sources of funding, as long as I don't work more than 520 hours per year to earn that funding. (The research proposal component of the application is so that the funding agency can evaluate my ability to form a coherent and useful research argument, not because they actually want to fund that specific project).

 

So, it would be possible (if I were still in Canada, where I'd be eligible for other awards) for me to win other fellowships that also fund me as a person, and not for any particular project. Should I turn down these other awards because I already have one? I don't think so--again, these fellowships/grants are awarded to support me as a person--in theory the additional money would relieve me of financial stress, perhaps "buy me out" of teaching duties, and basically contribute to my research productivity. Since the money is for me to use as I see fit (rather than a specific research budget), I would not consider it unethical to use multiple fellowships to increase my stipend.

 

In case the numbers matter, here they are: If I were in school in Canada, the first fellowship would pay about $35k, and there are additional grants in the range of $5k to $10k that I could apply for and "stack" to increase my stipend. I won't get anywhere near the $90k that you posted in an earlier example, but very strong students in Canada can reach stipends of $50k-$60k in the sciences. This is higher than average stipends of $25k to $30k, but not ridiculous: in fact, there is a national granting agency that grants $50k fellowships to a small number of students each year. (**Note: Canadian stipends do not include tuition waivers, so we would still have to pay tuition out of this money--average cost is $4000 to $7000 per year).

 

I like analogies so here is another way I see this: When it comes to fellowships/grants that funds a general thing like "work towards dissertation" instead of specific grants for things like travel, fieldwork, etc.,  I view the different stipend levels (due to combining grants or winning a really big one) as a similar to different employees getting hired at different salary rates based on their ability, prior experience, etc. Or even just supply/demand of certain skills. My previous thoughts about the difficulty of determining "merit" still applies.

 

Also, this is how academia currently operates. There are many "soft money" positions in my field, where researchers (i.e. full PhDs working in the field for many years, not just students) are expected to pay for their own research and salary entirely out of grants. So their annual salary depends on how many grants they can get that will fund their salary. In this case, it is definitely not unethical for someone to work to get as many grants as possible to earn $X instead of declining some grants and earning way less just so that someone else can earn something too. Finally, granting agencies are choosing to not "spread the wealth" in some cases. For example, the Canadian fellowship that pays $50k/year I mentioned above. They could have chosen to fund twice as many students at $25k/year but they do not because this fellowship is used to attract the best talent to Canada (or keep them in Canada). In my opinion, a good system has some balance of lower paying, more accessible awards, but also a small number of high paying exclusive awards. 

 

In summary--I think it's a bad thing when people "double-dip" and receive money for the exact same expense from multiple granting agencies. But a lot of grants are funding students directly, not for any particular expense, and I think it's okay to try to stack up as much of those as possible. 

[Igotnothin]

I agree with the main sentiment, but I think there are a lot of situations where this won't be so black and white. I picked my above examples to be a simple case, but some grants are rather complex. Here is a counterexample. That is, I think the following scenario would count as "sketchy" to you, but would be completely ethical, to me. (Note: I use my personal example because I know the details well, but this could apply to a number of students, and I won't take it personally if you disagree with my evaluation that this is ethical; my opinion is that ethics is subjective but I'd be interested to hear what you think):

 

I have currently have a Canadian fellowship that supports me as a student, not for any particular work. I wrote a research proposal in order to win this money but then went on to do a completely different project (in the same field). The only requirement was that I inform the granting agency about my change in project and as long as it fits within "Physics and Astronomy", it's all good. This is an example of a fellowship/grant where the funding agency believes in my ability as a student/researcher and is funding me, not for any particular research. In addition, this funding agency has no restrictions on outside sources of funding, as long as I don't work more than 520 hours per year to earn that funding. (The research proposal component of the application is so that the funding agency can evaluate my ability to form a coherent and useful research argument, not because they actually want to fund that specific project).

 

So, it would be possible (if I were still in Canada, where I'd be eligible for other awards) for me to win other fellowships that also fund me as a person, and not for any particular project. Should I turn down these other awards because I already have one? I don't think so--again, these fellowships/grants are awarded to support me as a person--in theory the additional money would relieve me of financial stress, perhaps "buy me out" of teaching duties, and basically contribute to my research productivity. Since the money is for me to use as I see fit (rather than a specific research budget), I would not consider it unethical to use multiple fellowships to increase my stipend.

 

In case the numbers matter, here they are: If I were in school in Canada, the first fellowship would pay about $35k, and there are additional grants in the range of $5k to $10k that I could apply for and "stack" to increase my stipend. I won't get anywhere near the $90k that you posted in an earlier example, but very strong students in Canada can reach stipends of $50k-$60k in the sciences. This is higher than average stipends of $25k to $30k, but not ridiculous: in fact, there is a national granting agency that grants $50k fellowships to a small number of students each year. (**Note: Canadian stipends do not include tuition waivers, so we would still have to pay tuition out of this money--average cost is $4000 to $7000 per year).

 

I like analogies so here is another way I see this: When it comes to fellowships/grants that funds a general thing like "work towards dissertation" instead of specific grants for things like travel, fieldwork, etc.,  I view the different stipend levels (due to combining grants or winning a really big one) as a similar to different employees getting hired at different salary rates based on their ability, prior experience, etc. Or even just supply/demand of certain skills. My previous thoughts about the difficulty of determining "merit" still applies.

 

Also, this is how academia currently operates. There are many "soft money" positions in my field, where researchers (i.e. full PhDs working in the field for many years, not just students) are expected to pay for their own research and salary entirely out of grants. So their annual salary depends on how many grants they can get that will fund their salary. In this case, it is definitely not unethical for someone to work to get as many grants as possible to earn $X instead of declining some grants and earning way less just so that someone else can earn something too. Finally, granting agencies are choosing to not "spread the wealth" in some cases. For example, the Canadian fellowship that pays $50k/year I mentioned above. They could have chosen to fund twice as many students at $25k/year but they do not because this fellowship is used to attract the best talent to Canada (or keep them in Canada). In my opinion, a good system has some balance of lower paying, more accessible awards, but also a small number of high paying exclusive awards. 

 

In summary--I think it's a bad thing when people "double-dip" and receive money for the exact same expense from multiple granting agencies. But a lot of grants are funding students directly, not for any particular expense, and I think it's okay to try to stack up as much of those as possible. 

 

I vote "unethical" on this one. Like ADDABD points out, more money for you means less (or none) for somebody else. I'm not surprised that you're okay with it since you're the one profiting from it. 

 

My interpretation of a grant funding "the person" just means that it's not for a particular project, but to fund good research in a general subject area. It doesn't mean that it is intended to give a researcher who already has funding a higher salary.

[TakeruK]

I vote "unethical" on this one. Like ADDABD points out, more money for you means less (or none) for somebody else. I'm not surprised that you're okay with it since you're the one profiting from it. 

 

My interpretation of a grant funding "the person" just means that it's not for a particular project, but to fund good research in a general subject area. It doesn't mean that it is intended to give a researcher who already has funding a higher salary.

 

To be clear, I am not profiting from multiple grants -- I'm just saying that it is possible in the sciences in Canada (and probably the US but I don't have first hand experience with US fellowships since I am not eligible for them). But since I am a Canadian attending a US school, I am only eligible for one grant.

 

Also, in my field, the point of some graduate grants that "fund the person" is exactly to give the researcher a higher salary. Some schools offer "signing bonuses" for students who have external fellowships in order to attract fellowship holders to the school / encourage students to apply for fellowships. And even without these bonuses, many schools in Canada have a tiered funding system where you will be paid at one of three levels based on how many external fellowship dollars you bring in. 

 

I would say that my interpretation of a grant funding "the person" to mean that the agency wants to provide monetary incentive for good researchers to do good work. In some cases, it might even provide them with some earned advantage (e.g. a good researcher wants to work for Prof X, who would be a great match but does not have funding to support more students; but with the grant, this would allow them to take on an extra student). 

 

That is, I am saying I see a difference between grants that are awarded for a specific purpose (i.e. you have to draw up a budget and monies are awarded according to said budget) and grants/fellowships that are just award money granted to you because the funding agency wants to fund you. For the former, I think it's unethical to deviate from what you said you would use the money for. For the latter, it's your money to spend however you want--if you want to blow it all on a giant party then drop out of grad school, it's your prerogative. [Edit: Assuming that you didn't apply for the money with this intention all along, which would be fraud. But if you applied in good faith and then decided grad school was not for you then that's still ethical.] I'm using an extreme example here and I'm not saying that this is recommended or professional behaviour, but it would still be ethical in my books because you did not promise to use that money for any specific purpose. That is, I would still think poorly of a person who wastes money like this, but I wouldn't call it unethical. 

[rising_star]

ADDABD, I actually don't think I misunderstood your original point at all (also, given my years of experience around here and grad school, you perhaps should not assume that I don't understand what fieldwork research grants in anthropology are ). But, we'll go back to what you wrote since you went so far as to cite yourself (also, our servers, AFAIK, are not in Indonesia but I guess you're just making assumptions all over the place so I should let that one slide...)

 

Well, I'll try one more time to be clear about what I'm questioning, quoting my earlier published work for reference (every academic's dream):

 

"Another way to state this is, the only thing that makes me uncomfortable here is the idea (that I'm imputing) of manipulating funding intended to cover one vital realm of grad work ('fieldwork') into covering others for which there is usually more support available (ABD, ADD. "Procrastinating on Dissertation on Comments Board" A Google Server In Indonesia: 2014)."

 

In the very originalest post, Saveagemind asked about three 'fieldwork research only' grants (we're both anthropologists, I'm familiar with these grants).  She or he asked how to maximize the return by writing a good budget, and later clarified by saying it was with the intention of legit research expenses.  I have no problem with any of that. Some of the advice veered towards the 'maximize your ability to do later non-fieldwork work' stuff, which is different.

 

Two things here:

1) You seem to believe that there is manipulation involved. Some granting agencies, like Wenner-Gren, stipulate that the funding cannot be used for tuition or write up while others do not. Others are more vague and just say "research expenses" or "research." In my case, one of the grants I received specified that it was to support me in my research, whatever that entailed. In their eyes, data analysis (in my case literally notebook upon notebook, plus hours of recording, plus hundreds of pages of website stuff) is part of the research. And, given my limited internet access while in the field, I actually couldn't really do all of my research while physically there. Again, some grants are stricter about what you can spend the money on than others.

2) Having applied for writing up fellowships, I have to say that there are fewer of them available than there are for fieldwork, unless your fieldwork is based in the USA. Many of the dissertation writing fellowships require your research be in a specific, narrowly defined field (so on education, for the Spencer, for example), be of a certain gender (AAUW), or certain ethnic identity (AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship) which rules out many applicants. For example, a lot of people in my department were able to get funding to go overseas to do their dissertation research and very few of those same people were able to get dissertation completion fellowships because they were white and/or male and/or their research didn't fit into the fields listed as eligible in the fellowship descriptions. (FWIW, there's a fairly comprehensive though admittedly not all-inclusive list here. If you read the titles, you can see some of what I mean about the narrower eligibility for these than for research fellowships.) Another factor is that many of the dissertation completion fellowships open to people of all fields are residential, meaning that you have to relocate to wherever that fellowship is housed (examples include Yale's International Security Studies, Exeter Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the Woodson Institute at UVa, just to choose three). Not everyone is able to do that for any number of reasons that I won't go into. Yet another factor worth mentioning is that a lot of the programs listed on that link offer just 1-2 awards per year, which is quite different than applying to Wenner-Gren, SSRC, etc., where dozens of awards are granted each year.

 

If you actually have numbers to back up your assertion that there is more funding available for things like writing up results than for conducting field research, I'd love to see the data (as I'm sure would my PhD advisor and others).

 

And, since the excerpt I took ends with a thing about the OP, I'll make another (hopefully crystal clear) statement to the OP. You maximize the possibilities of being able to use multiple grants by listing everything you'd need to be successful. If you're thinking about international research, you should consider that costs may have increased since you did preliminary fieldwork. I found this was the case in my research and was grateful that I'd added I think 7% to what I'd spent during pre-diss fieldwork to my budget since that entire amount was absorbed by rising rent and electricity prices. Another thing to do is to lay out every single thing you'd like to do. Would you like to hire a transcriber (if the grant allows)? A research assistant? Buy fancy software or a new computer? Print out materials or make copies of things you find? Include all of that. Is your project a multi-faceted one where there's a thing you could do that would add on to your project that isn't enough to do by itself? Include it in your proposals and, if possible, your budgets. If it's in your proposal, then you can argue for rerouting some of your grant money to that "side project" (not really a side project because it's related to your original research) if you happen to get multiple awards.

 

One of the things you, the OP (and everyone really), should know about fieldwork is that this is your last real opportunity for extended data collection and time in the field if you go into academia. You should collect as much data as possible, even if you're not sure you'll need it. You may discover when analyzing your data that you're glad for some of what seemed additional then because it now seems necessary. Or, going through those data again later may enable you to publish an additional article or write a book chapter that might not have been possible otherwise. More data is better almost always. So that's why I'm suggesting having the complementary smaller projects in mind and mentioning them where possible. If you get multiple awards, you may be able to use those projects to justify more time in the field, more research support, etc. ADDABD is probably going to say this is unethical but, you'll need the data. Your first few years post-PhD, even if you're lucky enough to be on the tenure-track, you'll be busy with teaching, service, and trying to publish the dissertation, which can make it hard to find the time for and be successful at getting a major grant to continue your research.

[ADDABD]

Well, the main difference between fieldwork funding and writing funding is that you can't teach, TA, or RA in the field.  Most people do during write-up in my experience.  That's not ideal, but it is funding, and it does allow people to finish. I wasn't talking about write-up fellowships in particular, which I'm sadly well-aware are very limited.  So in my view, there's way more funding available for write-up than for fieldwork because usually, during fieldwork, it's either impossible or silly to try to also do paid work.

 

And the original grants mentioned were, as you note, very fieldwork-specific. As in, cannot be used for other things, not even multiple trips to the field on the ones I'm familiar with. That's what my response was based on, not on whatever grant you or other people got that doesn't specify that. I've tried to make that really clear so it doesn't sound like I'm accusing you or anyone else in that situation of anything bad.  Hence my assumption about whatever field you're in or not in; I obviously have no idea what your experience or background is, nor your employment history with Grad Cafe, nor where your servers actually are (insert condescending emoticon).

 

All I can say about the tone of your rebuttal is, if the shoe fits wear it.  I still think there should be considerations other than maximizing your career advantages re: your colleagues, even when it comes to the holy grants. And the broader point is that manipulating fieldwork funding (within the letter but not the spirit of the law) is not, in my experience, uncommon, even though you haven't done it.

 

Most of the commentary on this site consists of people thinking about how to help their colleagues, collaboratively sharing information about how to make grants, applications, and other competitive documents better, which is obviously counter to one's own self interest (it would be better to have everyone else be a weak applicant).  I find that to be one of the refreshing things about Grad Cafe in the broader atmosphere of the academy, which as you note above, is cutthroat.

[RPCV Cameroon]

does anyone know if any of the following dissertation fieldwork grants are deferrable?

NSF DDRIG

SSRC IDRF
Wenner Gren

[fuzzylogician]

12 hours ago, RPCV Cameroon said:

does anyone know if any of the following dissertation fieldwork grants are deferrable?

NSF DDRIG

SSRC IDRF
Wenner Gren

This is a question best addressed at the program officer(s) for each grant, for official answers you can trust. These aren't things to play around with. Just write a short and respectful email and ask, I'm sure they're used to fielding these kinds of questions.