Senior Personnel Effort

Federal Regulations require all proposal budgets include commitment of effort commensurate with the level of effort individuals will devote to sponsored projects.  Further, OMB Memoranda 01-06 requires that most federally funded research programs should have some level of committed faculty (or senior researcher) effort, paid or unpaid by the Federal Government.

Accordingly, it is LSU's policy that with the exceptions of equipment, instrumentation, doctoral dissertation, student augmentation grants, and small research projects ($50,000 or less), all research proposal budgets (federal and non-federal) must include some level of effort by at least one senior researcher (PI, Co-PI, or other senior personnel) for each year of the project.  The effort can only be cost shared if the Sponsor requires cost sharing.

For those other senior personnel who do not have effort budgeted, PIs will certify through the proposal routing and approval process that these individuals will devote less than 5% time on the project.

See specific sponsor guidelines for additional restrictions on senior personnel effort.

  • NIH requires all senior personnel to devote measurable effort to the project.
  • As a general policy, NSF limits salary compensation for senior personnel to no more than two months of their regular salary in any one year for all NSF-funded grants.