Dedicated Funds for Engagement & Partner Compensation
Projects should dedicate funds to support engaging with partners and compensate partners for their time, expertise and perspectives in a timely manner and in ways that reflect their preferences and roles.
On This Page
This expectation helps projects to:
- Compensate partners in ways that reflect their needs and preferences, both financially and non-financially, while avoiding unintended consequences like loss of public benefits.
- Support meaningful engagement of partners in all phases of the project.
Questions to Get Started
To get started, reflect on the goals and needs of your project, explore the actions and examples and work as a team to answer these questions:
- To what extent does the project budget compensate partners at an amount that reflects their expertise, role and contributions? To what extent is compensation fair for all partners?
- To what extent have partners been involved in determining the type, amount and frequency of compensation?
- To what extent does compensation account for out-of-pocket costs that may be barriers to participation, such as parking, transportation, or childcare?
- To what extent does the project budget include funds to support full partner participation such as engagement coordinators, interpreters, training and technology supports like tablets or screen readers?
How to Put the Expectation into Practice
Dedicating funds to provide partners with equitable compensation helps support meaningful engagement. Providing compensation for partners can remove barriers to participation, facilitate fair engagement of all partners, help sustain trusted relationships with partners and demonstrate to partners that they are valued and respected. All partners should receive compensation that reflects their time, skills, expertise, responsibilities and project role, along with reimbursement for any out-of-pocket expenses associated with participation. In addition, partners should not be expected to volunteer their time or expertise. Project teams, including partners, should discuss how to allocate budget resources to support meaningful engagement, thinking about needs related to staffing, training, meetings and materials.
The following actions can help team members put this expectation into practice.
Allocate funds for managing and supporting engagement
When developing budgets, project teams should identify partner needs and dedicate funds to support their participation. To account for variations across sites and partners, teams may have to adjust the compensation type and amount for factors such as geographic location, circumstances that affect participation, or the need to identify partners with specific experiences or backgrounds. In addition to providing financial compensation for partners, teams should include resources that may be required to prepare researchers, staff and partners to effectively engage. Team members should also identify potential barriers to successful partner participation and allocate funds to address these barriers.
Project teams may find it helpful to include funding for:
- Roles to support partner engagement, such as an engagement lead or coordinator, partner liaisons and mentoring or engagement coaches
- Engagement-related orientation and training for all team members
- Technology for partners without reliable access to laptops, tablets, or a stable internet connection
- Support for partners to participate in meetings, including transportation, child or respite care and meals
- Language access services, including interpreters, translation, closed-captioning support and printing and mailing visually accessible materials as desired
Related PCORI Resources
Identify partner needs and preferences for compensation
Have discussions about payment when developing the project budget. Researchers and partners should discuss and develop plans that consider compensation type and amount, ensuring alignment with the proposed scope of work and partners’ needs and preferences. These discussions provide partners with the opportunity to make an informed choice about their participation. Compensation rates for all partners should be based on role, level of engagement and time required for participation. Compensation discussions can be an ongoing point of discussion and part of project management. As partner roles and responsibilities evolve over the course of the project, teams may need to adjust compensation.
Explore alternatives if encountering barriers to timely or fair payment. Sometimes teams encounter barriers to timely and fair payment, such as institutional policies and processes related to compensation, or limitations on partners’ ability to accept monetary payments due to receipt of public benefits. When this happens, researchers should work with partners to explore alternatives and identify ways to compensate partners that respect their contributions while guarding against unintended or negative impacts. If partners have been involved in other projects, their past experiences can inform these discussions. Developing appropriate plans for fair compensation includes:
- Allocating sufficient funds to support partners’ time and contributions.
- Understanding how partners prefer to be compensated (e.g., gift cards, cash, checks, direct deposit) and developing processes to support timely payment.
- Identifying whether and how compensation, as taxable income, may affect partners’ financial situations, taxes, or eligibility for benefits.
- Exploring alternatives to monetary compensation for partners as needed. Options that may be acceptable to partners could include access to educational courses or offerings, paid registration and travel for professional conferences, or credit toward certification requirements.
Related PCORI Resources
Communicate how financial resources are shared and allocated, including changes after award
Be transparent about the scope of work and budget. To foster shared responsibility and fairness in advance of the project, researchers should be transparent with all partners about the scope of work and budget. Transparency includes developing written agreements that outline partner tasks, responsibilities and budget allocations using plain language. Agreements should also describe any non-monetary or indirect compensation available to partners, such as paying for registration and travel for professional conferences.
Discuss revisions to the budget. Sometimes project teams may need to make budget changes as part of the award process or as tasks, activities and responsibilities evolve over the course of the project. When this happens, share information about the need for budget revisions with all relevant partners in a timely manner and work with partners to identify and discuss options prior to making any adjustments. It may be helpful to designate a specific individual to share information and participate in discussions with partners about potential changes to the budget and activities and how the changes affect partners. As part of this process, partners should have the opportunity to make an informed decision about continued participation.
Related PCORI Resources
Plan internal processes so that payment occurs in a timely and efficient manner
Learn about institutional policies related to compensation. Providing partners with timely compensation and reimbursement for expenses conveys respect for people’s time and expertise and supports their sustained participation. Researchers can support this process by learning about institutional policies related to compensation and payment and discussing these policies with all partners. It is helpful to identify a designated point of contact for partners’ questions about or issues with payments and to develop templates for contracts, agreements, invoices and other financial policy forms that are easy for partners to complete. Teams should ensure that partners have a clear understanding of payment plans and timelines and be proactive about tracking payments and addressing issues to minimize burden.
Explore policies and practices that align with partner needs and preferences. In some cases, institutions may not be set up to compensate partners in ways that align with partner needs and preferences. Team members can work to address this challenge over time by:
- Working with finance and contracts departments on potential solutions, including sharing tangible examples from partners about how policies may affect partner engagement
- Enhancing understanding at institutions about the value of engaging partners in research and offering ideas for how the institution can support partners’ participation in CER and other research
- Identifying champions who can explore any system and policy changes that could support partner engagement
- Building partnerships with key departments such as IT, accounting, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and human resources to explore systems that support partner engagement
Related PCORI Resources
--
