Faculty Feedback
For, a concern over the realistic expectations remained a concern. According to some of the faculty answers, the sustainability of locating funds for the 5% is not realistic long-term. For other faculty, while their departments currently provide the 5%, this isn’t sustainable in the current scientific funding climate. This presents a retention issue for UCSF, if such faculty opt to depart for other institutions who provide a higher research salary support.
Another concern voiced by faculty is the ethical implications that eliminating the 5% could enforce. For example, one faculty member advocated for keeping the 5% effort intact, because they attend faculty meetings that are unrelated to their research projects. While research
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Faculty that currently raise 95% of their funds feel not only pressure to raise adequate funds, but the relationship between administration and faculty also suffers as a result. If research faculty lost the 5% mandate and relied solely on grants they would no longer receive any funding from the university itself. As some noted, the current 5% is low as is, and a further decrease to 0% would prove disrespectful, and that rather the 5% should be raised to 10-15%. Out of common courtesy, certain faculty believe the 5% should not be …show more content…
Neither satisfies every faculty member. While a faculty member fully supported by federally-funded grants may feel the freedom to research subjects that genuinely interest them, they may hit a roadblock when submitting a new grant that is not geared toward their specific research or when approaching advancement or promotion review. It also presents an additional barrier for recruitment of new faculty to an already limited professional environment.
Overall, if UCSF moves to support allowing faculty to be 100% sponsor-funded for research, it should be on an individual choice and not a campus wide mandate. A decision to eliminate or maintain the 5% could either weaken or strengthen the relationship between research faculty and their department heads. The loss of the 5% may not appear truthful when a research faculty audits time that is spent researching as research, and yet preserving the 5% could free up tight expenses that administration is already undergoing. Finally, while certain research faculty may be able to succeed on the loss of the 5%, others feel the current 5% is already too low and a further decrease would be rather insulting. The answers released by faculty were a clear indication that the relationship between research faculty and the university is already