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You'll Want Help: Subcontractors and Consultants

As the competition for government funding gets tighter, it is increasingly difficult to plan, conduct, and evaluate a research project or program without outside help. Consultants and subcontractors can play an important role in adding expertise to your application or complementing the skills of the Principal Investigator or Project Director.

Subcontractor: A subcontract can be offered to a company or organization that has expertise in a particular area (such as evaluating service delivery programs) that the proposed project team lacks. A subcontractor is usually written into a grant to perform a specific function (such as the evaluation). Subcontractors must be written into the budget of the grant and are paid out of grant funding.

List any potential subcontractors.

Consultants: A consultant is an individual (or group of individuals) brought onto a project to provide expert advice in a particular field. Consultants may be organized into an expert panel that meets several times over the course of the grant period to review materials and make recommendations. Consultants also must be written into the budget of the grant and are paid out of grant funding.

List any potential consultants.

Statistical consultation: Statistical consultation will improve your application and should be used even before pilot data are collected. In fact, Rush, Gullion, and Prien (1996) state that applications prepared without statistical consultation have a much higher failure rate.

  
“If you don't fully understand statistics (and that is not a crime), find someone who does to review the design of your application. A few minutes with your local statistician is an excellent investment.&148; (Sontheimer and Bergstresser, 1991)

If needed, who will be your statistical consultant?

Some grant applications specify what percentage of the budget can go to subcontractors and consultants. It is best to check these regulations before you start recruiting consultants and subcontractors.

Other types of help and support, such as proposal review, might come from your fellow faculty members, supervisors, or a mentor. Don't be afraid to ask for help! Many people out there have been through this rigorous process, and most are more than willing to share their insights with you.

 

  

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Last updated: August 12, 2003.