When formulating a proposal, Credit and Indirect percentages need to be agreed upon for the PI, Co-PI(s), and Senior Personnel. Unless there is an extenuating circumstance, the percentage of credit and indirect that each researcher receives should reflect how much work and/ or resources that they will give to the project.
A researcher’s credit is the amount of merit they can claim from the project. For example, if a researcher has a 50% credit split on a $1 million project, they can claim half of the project’s success, and they can claim they brought $500,000 to the university. Credit is very important to a researcher’s career, especially for new faculty. Faculty should never settle for less credit on a project than they deserve.
Indirect split is the amount of overhead that each researcher and their department and/ or college has claim to. This amount is important to both the researcher and their department chair. Often, this amount will be the same as the Credit split. Chairs may send back Proposal Transmittal Forms if they do not agree with how much indirect the researcher will be earning for the department and/ or college. If a researcher will be asking for an indirect percentage that is less than their credit percentage, they should discuss this with their chair, along with their reasons for doing so.