Research Incentive Program

1.    Research Incentives are distributed each fiscal year and are funded from MCGRI's portion of the Facilities and Administrative Costs (F&A; also known as indirect cost) recovered in connection with extramural awards.  MCGRI's portion is 21.7% of the total research indirect cost recovery; the remaining 78.3% is received by MCG or directed to specific institutional projects.

2.    The incentive may be awarded to individual faculty as:  (1) a salary supplement, (2) funds deposited in a standard incentive account at the Medical College of Georgia, or (3) distributed as a combination of the two.  Incentive awards will not be made for amounts less than $100.  Incentives paid as salary supplements will be made in a lump-sum payment each July.  Salary supplements are subject to both the employer and employee share of State and Federal tax deductions, but neither employer nor employee contributions to retirement programs will be deducted.  These salary supplements are explicitly intended to be independent of individual merit raise determinations; the maintenance of this independence will be emphasized by the MCG administration.

3.    The Research Incentive Program is only available to MCG Faculty at the rank of Assistant/Associate/Research Scientist, Instructor, Assistant/Associate/Professor whose role in the project is identified as principal investigator, co-investigator, or collaborator.  Faculty members with a clinical or adjunct appointment will be eligible to receive a research incentive distribution utilizing the standard incentive account option only, provided they: 1) remain located at MCG, and 2) submit a brief statement explaining how the funds will be used and describing how their use will promote MCG’s mission.  Retired faculty who continue to accumulate MCGRI incentive account funds will be allowed to spend those funds in accordance with the process and priorities stated in section 8.  Note that the salary supplement option is not available to retired faculty.  Consultants are not eligible to participate in the research incentive program.  Incentive amounts available to principal investigators/co-investigators/ collaborating investigators will be calculated during the first calendar quarter of each calendar year based on grants and contracts funded through MCGRI during the preceding calendar year (January 1 - December 31).  The January-December base has been selected to allow the most recent grant and contract information to be taken into account in computing the awards.  Investigators will receive written notification of total incentive amounts and will be given the opportunity to select their incentive option.  Whether taken as salary supplement or Research Incentive account, funds will become available in July.

4.    The incentive award is calculated at 10% of F&A earned based on direct cost spending of individual awards during the calendar year January - December.  The calculation is made in two steps:  (a) 40% of the incentive calculation is available to the principal investigator in recognition of his/her specific project responsibilities, and (b) the remaining 60% is distributed among the principal investigator and co-investigators/collaborators in proportion to their relative effort commitments to the grant or contract based on certified effort reports. After the incentive amount is calculated, each investigator is given the opportunity to select the desired incentive option, i.e., salary supplement, incentive amount or a combination of the two.                

Incentive calculations on program projects grants will be based on F&A earnings of the individual projects and cores.  The PI (and collaborators) of each project/core will receive an incentive award based on the project/core to which they have effort/salary assigned.  Note:  Only faculty are eligible to participate in the incentive program.  In accordance with institutional policy, faculty must assign salary commensurate to effort as permitted by the sponsor's guidelines.   

5.    Funds established in a Research Incentive Account are to be used to promote the academic research mission of the Medical College of Georgia.  Research Incentive funds may not be used to support entertainment, gifts, or private inurement of paid faculty or staff.

6.    When an active grant is transferred to another faculty member at the Medical College of Georgia any Research Incentive amount balance accrued will be transferred to the new principal investigator.  Research Incentive funds generated after the transfer will be awarded to the new PI.

7.     When faculty members who are receiving a Research Incentive salary supplement reduce their MCG work commitment, the concomitant salary reduction shall be based on the EFT salary exclusive of the Research Incentive salary supplement, since supplements are awarded based on previous work and are not a part of the EFT salaries.

8.    Research Incentive account balances will revert to MCGRI when faculty leave or retire from the Medical College of Georgia unless prior arrangements have been made with the relevant chair and dean and with the Vice President for Research for continued use in support of ongoing research or support of students or fellows.  Accounts will be reviewed annually in July; account holders will be given 30 days notice that the account will be deleted if the balance is below $100.  Requests to transfer the incentive account balance to another faculty member will be considered if appropriately justified.  In all cases, priorities for use of these funds are:  (1) to allow students (graduate) and clinical or postdoctoral fellows to complete training, and (2) to continue or complete research with potential for external funding. 

Research Incentive Policy (pdf version)

May 2007 - Revised and Approved by the MCGRI Executive Committee