Research Insights

UGA faculty will soon have an opportunity to provide input that may help streamline the administrative workload associated with federally-funded research.

The Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP; thefdp.org), a cooperative initiative hosted by the National Academies, is conducting a national survey of federally-funded principal investigators (PIs) to explore the impact of federal regulations on the time faculty spend pursuing active research. The University of Georgia is an active member of FDP, and the FDP has a list of our PIs on federal grants and contracts during the last complete academic year. As one of those PIs, you may be contacted and asked to complete the web-based FDP Faculty Workload Survey.

Be on the lookout for an email message in the first two weeks of February (Feb 5 – 16, 2018) inviting you to participate in the FDP Faculty Workload Survey. Please consider taking the 15-30 minutes necessary to complete the survey and contribute to this national effort to streamline administrative processes in federally-funded research.

Participation in the study is voluntary, but the more researchers that participate, the stronger the data. Your firsthand input will help FDP work more effectively with federal agencies, and institutions conducting research to increase the efficiency of research administration, potentially reducing the workload of PIs.

The FDP is comprised of 10 federal agencies and 154 institutional recipients of federal funds working together to reduce the administrative burdens associated with research grants and contracts. The FDP is a unique forum for individuals from universities and nonprofits to work collaboratively with federal agency officials to improve the national research enterprise. The current study is a follow-up to the FDP 2005 and 2012 Faculty Workload Surveys, which provided estimates of the proportion of federally-funded research time spent on administrative workload compared to active research. These estimates have been used by institutions, national groups, federal agencies, and even lawmakers to try to target and decrease unnecessary research-related administrative burden. The 2018 Faculty Workload Survey will update these data to determine whether the workload has changed, and will extend the earlier survey findings by exploring variables associated with administrative workload, as well as priorities for change. The results of this study will be a primary source for setting FDP priorities and developing initiatives to improve the research process.

Note that the IRB that reviewed and approved this survey has examined the survey methodology and survey instruments to ensure that all responses will be handled in a confidential manner, by a qualified survey company. The names of the participants will not be known to their university/institution or to the FDP. The survey results will be published as aggregate data; no individual names will be associated with any responses. These protections will allow you to respond candidly to the questions posed in the survey.

For questions or for more information, contact MaryAnn Deom at mtd@uga.edu or 706-542-8808.