Office of the Provost

Faculty and Unclassified Staff Handbook
Chapter 4 -- Faculty: Benefits, Responsibilities, and Specific Requirements

Policy on Research Incentives

The Mission and Role Statement of Fort Hays State University includes the following paragraph concerning the role of scholarship at the university:

Scholarship at Fort Hays State University is supported because it stimulates faculty and students, provides new knowledge, connects the disciplines, and bridges between teaching and learning while linking theory with practice to address the needs of society.

In order to encourage faculty members to pursue extramural funding for their research and for their teaching, the following incentive policy is presented:

Whenever a faculty member has written and received funding from a grant (federal or foundation), or participates in a grant in which there is salary savings, that faculty member will be eligible to receive a one-time bonus award of a maximum of 50% of the first year’s base salary savings for that grant.

For example:

If a faculty member writes and receives a federal grant for $300,000 for one year, which includes a salary provision for $10,000 ($5,000 for Fall and $5,000 for Spring) for the faculty member, that faculty member would be eligible for a maximum one-time bonus of $5,000 for that grant.

Definitions/Considerations:

1. The one-time bonus could be paid over more than one pay period.

2. The one-time bonus will be paid in the fiscal year following the year in which the grant is awarded.

3. The awarding of a bonus must be consistent with the guidelines imposed by the granting agency.

4. The academic base salary (i.e., base salary savings) does not include fringe benefits.

5. There is no restriction on the number of bonus awards a faculty member could receive, but each bonus award must be based upon a separate grant.

6. The one-time bonus will be half of the true savings realized by the university (e.g., if a department must hire another individual to cover the duties of the faculty member and there is no provision for this replacement in the grant, the expense incurred by the department will be deducted from the bonus).

7. Procedure:
The faculty member must receive approval by the department chair, the dean of the college, the Provost, and the President for the amount of the research incentive before the grant is submitted. This approval can be noted on the Preliminary Notice Form (the yellow sheet) attached to grants. Once a grant with salary provision has been funded by an agency, the faculty member would send a request for the bonus to the chair of the department for signature, and then forward the request, in sequence, to the dean of the college, the Provost, and the President for signature.

8. Staff members are eligible for such bonus awards following the same procedures, except the approval sequence would be the appropriate unit director, the appropriate Vice President, and the President.

Approved by President’s Cabinet (05/29/02)

Back to Chapter 4