Published on 31 January 2011
pFACT - fEC Rates Change on 1 February 2011
In line with fEC guidelines, the University has to implement revised full economic cost (fEC) rates from 1 February each year. Therefore, please be advised that the University fEC rates will change on 1 February 2011. pFACT will not be available on the morning of Tuesday 1 February (8am to 12noon) as during this time the new rates will be updated. The new rates are available at the Research Office website http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/research/raven/bulletin/special.aspx. Please note that this link is restricted to Cambridge staff only and you need to use your Raven access to view it.
- Effect on Applications - From 1 February 2011, all applications should be revised so that they use these new figures (note that some project proposals may show zero costs on their summary page). To ensure your application uses the new figures, click the “Recalculate” button on the summary page.
- Major Research Facilities - Some of the existing Major Research Facilities (MRF) rates will be revised on 1 February 2011, which means that after this date, all applications that include MRFs will need to be updated with these new figures. To incorporate the updated rates, the Research Office will make adjustments to applications as required. Note that no new rates are being added to pFACT at this time.
For queries relating to the rate change please contact your School Team at the Research Office http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/research/contact/list.aspx.
pFACT - Research Council Student Maintenance Rate for 2011/12
The Research Council UK minimum doctoral stipend for 2011/12 has been frozen for 2010/11 at £13,590 per annum, see Research Council letter http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/researchcareers/Feesandstipends2011-12letter.pdf. The Research Office updated pFACT with this information on 24 January 2011.
pFACT - Terms and Conditions Screen
From Monday 7 February, current users of pFACT will no longer see the ‘I Accept’ button within the terms and conditions screen when logging into pFACT. New pFACT users will see this screen only when they log in for the very first time. Even though users no longer need to click on the “I Accept” button on the terms and conditions screen each time, you are still obliged to adhere to the University’s Policy on Confidentiality and UK Government’s Data Protection Act.
If you have any queries regarding the above, please contact your School Team at the Research Office or the pFACT helpdesk at pFACT.helpdesk@admin.cam.ac.uk or 01223 (7)65432.
MRC e-Val presentation
Dr Ian Viney, Head of Strategic Evaluation from the MRC visited Cambridge on Wednesday 26 January to talk about the MRC's second annual output data gathering survey e-Val and how the data gathered will impact on the future availability of funding. His presentation can be found on the Research Office website http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/research/documents/local/presentations/2011_01_26_MRC.pdf