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Consultancy, secondary employment and internal work

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This policy and related procedures are applicable to all staff and affiliates unless stated otherwise.

  1. Overview
  2. Quick guide
  3. Key changes
  4. Identifying consultancy
  5. Identifying secondary employment
  6. Identifying internal work
  1. Costing and pricing of research and consultancy
  2. Personal payments and academic consultancy
  3. Disclosing secondary employment
  4. Managing consultancy, secondary employment and internal work
  5. Resources

7. Costing and pricing of research and consultancy

UQ aims to support sustainable research and consultancy activity through the new policies and procedures. The new Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure undertakes a two-step approach to costing and pricing:

  1. Pricing to the customer
  2. Costing to the project

UQ now also maintains a consistent approach to research and consultancy indirect cost recovery. You must keep the following in mind:

  • The University will seek to price projects to recover, as a minimum, all direct costs and indirect costs from project funds where permitted by the funding provider
  • Consultancy work and contract research should be priced in line with market prices to reflect the value of University services
  • Budgets and expenditure must comply with the specific rules and guidelines set by the funding provider and Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure; and
  • Indirect costs are real costs that the University incurs:
    • The indirect cost recovery rate applicable to both consultancy and research activities is now 40% flat rate on total direct costs. There are no longer different rates applicable to salary costs vs other direct costs such as equipment, consumables, analytical services and travel.
    • Pricing to external clients for all consultancy activities must include 40% recovery for indirect costs (overheads) on all Standard and Teaching consultancy projects. Academic consultancies do not charge overheads.
    • Indirect costs (overheads) are only centrally distributed for Type 2 Standard Consultancies. For Standard consultancies (Type 3) with direct costs < $10K, indirect costs must be charged to clients but stay in Academic Consultancy Accounts for academic purposes.
    • CI salaries must be fully priced in the contract for consultancy projects and cannot be priced as in-kind. For contract research, under limited conditions, CI salaries may be priced as in-kind with Level 5 Authorised Officer (HoS) approval.

Project budget (costing) development guidance for projects can be found in the Contract Research and Grants Financial Management Procedure and the Consultancy Procedure.

UQ Costing and Pricing Tool

The costing and pricing of contract research and consultancy projects must be calculated using the UQ Costing and Pricing Tool.

The tool offers flexibility in customisation of budget items, provision for budgets across periods other than strict adherence to calendar year inputs and an interactive, customisable view of budget output.

Transitional arrangements

Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing transitional arrangements include the following:

  • All existing agreements and contracts with external parties signed and commenced prior to 1 May 2020 may continue under the existing arrangements until completion of the existing contracts.
  • If a proposal, including budget, has been sent to the external party, but where contract is yet to be signed, a different indirect cost rate that may have been negotiated/agreed with the external party may proceed with approval of either the Director Research Partnerships, Director Office of Sponsored Research, or Director of CoRE, as appropriate.  Evidence of the communication of the indicative budget to the external partner may be requested.

For more information, including guidance regarding permitted variations to the indirect cost recovery rate of 40%, see the Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Standard Operating Procedure for Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) and Research Partnerships Managers (RPMs).

Project budget (costing) development guidance for projects can be found in the Contract Research and Grants Financial Management Procedure and the Consultancy Procedure.

Relevant policy and procedures

Need advice?

Identifying consultancy, secondary employment and internal work may be complex for some staff.

If you are unsure how to identify, disclose or manage consultancy, secondary employment and/or internal work items, you can talk to:

For consultancy:

For secondary employment:

For conflicts of interest (COI):

For queries about conflicts of interest related to research:

For general queries regarding the disclosure and management of interests, contact:

           

Disclosure and management of interests - who needs to register?

UQ has created an integrated framework regarding the disclosure and management of interests, which simplifies and clarifies policies and procedures to ensure ethical and legal compliance.        

All fixed-term and continuing staff members are required to complete the Conflict of Interest Register. Casual, unpaid and honorary staff who have a conflict of interest to declare are required to complete the Conflict of Interest form (PDF 1.42 MB) and submit to your supervisor in your organisational unit. Note that this form is different to the Conflict of Interest Register.

All professional staff (HEW 8 level and above) are required to complete the Secondary Employment Register.

All academic staff (continuing and fixed-term contracts of 12 months or longer; conjoint appointments where UQ is the lead employer) are required to complete the:

These registers must be completed annually, even if there is no item to disclose, and when circumstances change.