Research Support Fund (RSF)

1) Indirect costs of research at RMC

Every year, our researchers successfully compete for and receive millions of dollars of money for research from a number of different granting agencies. This means that, RMC must provide a great deal of infrastructure that serves to support the multitude of research programs from our different faculty members. These so-called "indirect costs of research" range from providing appropriate laboratory space and office space and support for researchers and their teams of students and technical staff to providing technical, logistical and clerical support. In other words, indirect costs include the day to day background support that is not glamorous but its absence would leave a void that would seriously decrease the efficiency of all research at RMC.

2) Description of the Research Support Fund and how the institution allocates its RSF grant under each of the expenditure areas

The importance of these costs as well as the large financial burden they place on research at Universities as been recognized by the tri-council of federal granting agencies (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) In order to support these costs, they have created the Research Support Fund.

The five expenditure areas of the Research Support Fund are:

• Research facilities;
• Research resources;
• Management and administration of an institution's research enterprise;
• Regulatory requirements and accreditation;
• Intellectual property.

For 2024-25, the Royal Military College of Canada has been allocated $857,726.

The research enterprise at RMC is grateful for the support made possible through the Research Support Fund; The money has proven to be invaluable in our promoting the development of excellence in our researchers. The money has allowed us to undertake a number of initiatives (for complete details of the effects of the Research Support Fund, the reader is invited to consult our annual report on the website of the Research Support Fund). Some important examples include:

Management and administration of an institution's research enterprise:

The money has allowed us to get administrative assistance in Research Administration that serves to facilitate the financial administration of the research moneys received at RMC.

Research resources:

We were able to recruit a research grants officer to assist faculty in developing grant applications.

Research facilities:

We were able to assist in maintaining and increasing key library resources including subscriptions to key databases and research journals.

3) The Research Support Fund grant has impact at RMC

A complete description of the impact of the Research Support Fund at the Royal Military College is available in our annual report on the web site of Research Support Fund. Notable examples include:

• The moneys received means increased resources available to our researchers and less time spent on non-research related administrative tasks.
• Increases the economic impact of the grant in a number of areas including the fact that some of the moneys freed allows for employment of local students especially from nearby Queen's university.
• Increased research facilities, resources and services covered in part by the indirect costs grant contribute to the attraction of new researchers.
• Recent acquisition of library holdings, databases, information research tools that serve to meet the needs of our researchers.
• Services offered by the research office (e.g. support for grant applications, research workshops, etc.) that facilitate the work of researchers.