Context and Background
In August 2011, the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP) developed a plan to use central resources from the Core Financial Plan (CFP), up to $10 million, to support recruitment of mid-career faculty. The support was provided with the expectation that facilities and administration (F&A) indirect cost recovery resulting from grants transferred to UCSF, or new grants awarded to the candidate after arrival at UCSF, would repay the award value within three years. This document summarizes the plan and experience to date and recommends renewing the program. The business procedures to manage this program are also included.
The EVCP has delegated administration of the Program to the Vice Chancellor for Research (VCR), and Budget & Resource Management (BRM) will continue supporting business procedures.
Program Summary and Focus
Recruitment of top-quality faculty is always a core goal of UCSF. The original program was designed to help schools recruit strong mid-career faculty to maintain and enhance the basic research, clinical research, and population health sciences communities in what was a challenging financial environment, such that these faculty could grow and thrive at UCSF. The EVCP, who has had responsibility for managing and administering this program for the past decade conducted an informal review of Vice Deans in all the professional schools to ensure that this program was still seen as valuable and effective. While not all schools have used the program evenly, the School of Medicine, in particular, indicated that this was an extremely helpful program and had been valuable to them in their efforts in recruitment.
Program Aspects
- A $10 million Chancellor’s Mid-career Recruitment Fund is supported through the Core Financial Plan.
- The fund was originally designed to target the recruitment of 10-20 research-focused faculty across the basic research, clinical research, and population health sciences disciplines, who are not being recruited to leadership positions such as division, department, or ORU heads.
- The fund will, going forward, target recruitment of another 10-20 research focused faculty across disciplines.
- Schools and departments are fully responsible for programmatic decisions, faculty location/space and the remaining balance of the recruit’s start-up package. Schools are also responsible for repaying to the Mid-Career program any shortfall in a candidate’s F&A recovery at the end of the three-year period.
- Start-up funding for new recruits may be solicited from the fund for up to three times the equivalent of one year’s expected F&A cost recovery.
- In calculating the award amount and repayment, only newly generated sponsored projects or those transferred to UCSF by the recipient following the Mid-Career allocation will be included.
- F&A credited towards repayment also will be adjusted by subtracting 10.5%, which is the amount of recovery returned to the school. For example:
- Recruit is expected to bring in $200,000 a year in F&A for three years for a total of $600,000
- Of the anticipated $600,000, 10.5%, or $63,000 is returned to school, resulting in repayment credit in the amount of $537,000
- The fund will be self-sustaining, with replenishment coming from the F&A brought to UCSF by the recruit during the first three years of employment.
Process
- Schools seeking to tap Mid-Career Recruitment program funding contact the VCR.
- Information to be submitted to the VCR on potential faculty recruits who could be candidates for this fund must include:
- Letter of nomination from the Dean including a statement of the recruit’s academic and scientific stature, the dollar amount of the request, documentation of the expected three-year indirect cost recoveries and guarantee that the school will cover any shortfall over the three-year period.
- The recruit’s Curriculum Vitae.
- External letters of support.
- Candidate’s DEI statement
Please note that either the dean or department chair should have verified all candidate information before submission.
- The VCR will review the request, reviewing the F&A projection component with BRM, and make their determination of approval, based on the criteria for selection (see below).
- The VCR will communicate their decision to the school and notify BRM of the pending loan award.
- If the recruitment is successful, the school will forward the VCR the signed offer letter.
- Upon VCR notification to BRM, funds will be made available to the appropriate department.
- BRM will calculate allowable F&A after the end of each fiscal year for each recipient, tracking repayment.
- BRM will provide a report to the VCR that includes repayment applied and the current mid-career fund balance.
- The VCR will communicate annual results of repayment status to the schools, including requests for the school to fulfill repayment for any loan not recouped within three calendar years from the date of allocation.
- The VCR may on a case-by-case basis provide an extension to the school, e.g., should the PI have confirmed awards projected to generate the necessary F&A within a reasonable timeframe.
Criteria for Selection of a Recruit
The appropriateness of candidates will be based on the following criteria:
- Be highly regarded by peers; an established leader in their field with a track record of outstanding research.
- Be at a mid-career level—i.e.; have additional opportunity for growth in academic and scientific stature once arriving at UCSF.
- Have an existing active and funded research program.
Be focused on research, either wet or dry lab, across any discipline (similar to criteria used for HHMI investigators)
Internal Budget & Resource Management Process
Once the recruitment is successful, the VCR provides supporting detail to the Executive Director, Operating Budget, Budget & Resource Management (BRM). Full supporting detail should include the candidate’s Other Support Pages with grant detail (or copies of award letters), letter with loan amount detail and signature of Dean that represents agreement to cover shortfall, the candidate’s acceptance letter with verification of UCSF appointment start date, and the complete chart string for distribution of loan support. Funding will be timed to match the needs of the recruiting department.
Within BRM, the Core Financial Plan (CFP) analyst will allocate funding to the department and will track the commitment in the CFP. A BRM institutional analysis analyst will establish a tracking system of F&A generated by each candidate funded through this program. The awards associated with the F&A tracking system must have the faculty officially listed as the PI in the award attribute. F&A recovery will be credited towards the repayment of the Mid-Career allocation if the awards are new to UCSF. ‘New’ is defined as being transferred to UCSF from the candidate’s previous institution, or grants resulting from proposals that are submitted by the candidate after arrival to UCSF.
BRM will replenish the fund annually, after fiscal year close data is collected and summarized to accurately report F&A earned by the individual faculty. The normal F&A process will occur with distribution to the school, and the balance will be returned to the Mid-Career program. BRM will send an annual report to the VCR’s office with remaining balance owed to fund.
After three years, the loan must be fully reimbursed from earned F&A. If a balance is owed, BRM will ask the dean responsible for the faculty recruit to provide a chart string to pay for the remaining balance owed to the fund.
Allocation Guidelines
If the recruit leaves the institution before the loan is paid, the dean of the appropriate School will be responsible for reimbursing the fund. BRM will contact the dean to obtain the chart string for the repayment of balance owed.
If the recruit leaves the institution after the loan is paid, any unused funds can be retained by the school.
The Chancellor will cover lost STIP associated with this program. To avoid over commitment of the fund, BRM will provide VCR with an annual report indicating balance of loan funds available.