Introduction:

The rapid rate of increase in sponsored and post graduate research activity within the University is welcome,
but is placing great pressure on University finances and indirectly on the resources for teaching and students. 

FEC is an Activity Based Costing system that will provide evidence to Research Funders, both exchequer
funded (SFI, HEA, EU, Govt. Dept’s, etc), and non-exchequer funded (Irish Industry, International organisations,
etc) to improve funding for research.  It is clear that research activity, which is mostly only part funded, is
not recovering its full costs, and is effectively being subsidised by teaching. 

FEC has already been implemented in all UK universities and will be rolled out simultaneously by each of
the 7 Irish Universities over the next year.  In addition, under EU FP7 rules there is a requirement by
1 January 2010 for full economic cost reporting.  Each Irish University will be engaging with staff with regard
to the commencement of the application of the new model and the processes associated therewith. 

FEC in practice:

The model requires the retrospective periodic analysis of academic activity. This will involve individual
academics confidentially completing an academic activity profile (AAP) retrospectively for each of three
periods across a complete twelve month period. 

This will be done using percentages of time by activity, rather than hours by activity, with reasonableness
check being carried out by the Head of School.  There will be a data dictionary providing unambiguous
descriptions of each category of activity.  The data collected will have an institutional guarantee in terms of
use for any purpose other than Full Economic Costing.  The current requirement for partial time sheets by
certain Funders will continue as before.    

There are 9 activities in total, listed below:

These percentages are then allocated to cost groupings to arrive at a cost by activity.  The system has
been designed as a holistic costing system.  It will cover all activities of the University (Teaching, Research
and Other) and allocate total expenditure (reconciled to GAAP accounts and HEA Funding model).

Conclusion:

The financial environment of the Irish Universities is challenging.  The information on costs produced by
FEC is needed for the effective planning and management of University activities.

Within each College we look forward to implementing FEC to ensure the College and NUIG as a whole secures its future place as a leader in an increasingly competitive international arena.