Do Faculty Track the True Cost of Grant Applications?

p strongUniversities often know whether a grant was won, but far fewer know how much faculty and staff effort the application consumed./strong/p p Primary Research Group found that only 6.92% of full professors tracked the time they spent on grant submissions. Cost tracking also varied unexpectedly by grant experience: 19.05% of faculty with lifetime grant totals between $50,000 and $250,000 tracked submission costs, compared with only 3.51% of those with lifetime totals between $1 million and $5 million./p p That missing information matters. A proposal can involve faculty writing, research-office review, budget preparation, compliance work, partner negotiation and departmental administration. Even when no cash changes hands, the opportunity cost can be substantial&mdashespecially for low-probability or poorly aligned programs./p p Institutions do not need burdensome timesheets for every application. They can estimate effort by proposal type, record major external expenses and review a sample of submissions. Combined with success rates and award value, those estimates can reveal where internal seed funding, templates, editing or a decision not to apply would produce better returns./p p Cost data should support faculty rather than punish ambition. Used carefully, it helps leaders protect time, improve support and distinguish strategically valuable risk-taking from repetitive applications with little chance of success./p p  /p