Planning for your Research Needs

Each project at the BMSF incurs costs in terms of instrument time, sample preparation and staff input. It is nessessary that a part-contribution to these costs be made by the users, and, so far as possible, that these costs are planned for and included in the budget of research proposals. Most access fees at the BMSF are charged on the basis of the hours of instrument time used.

Public sector researchers are charged a base hourly cost (Academic Rate) that is tied to the actual operational costs to provide this access. Government and institutional infrastructure funding contribute to this base rate to reduce it to a net user charge. It is recommended that budgets in research grant applications list the total net costs requested from the funding agency and, in separate columns, the Institutional and other Government contributions to the base access costs. The access fee schedules in this site show the base rates and the contributions to these from all sources.

The BMSF can provide assistance in preparing and justifying grant budgets the following ways:

• Determining an appropriate number of hours of access required by the project
• Describing the nature of the mass spectrometry to be undertaken
• Providing a clear statement of the contributions to the costs for analysis are subsidised institutionally and otherwise.

Example of budget line for year 2 (ARC):

Example of Justification of Funding (ARC):

The ARC example above may be adapted for other agencies such as NHMRC etc. Users who want additional assistance with writing their grants should contact the BMSF Director well ahead of the grant deadline.