Research personnel can receive a stipend or a salary.

A stipend is a fixed payment made to an individual registered in a graduate program to cover their living expenses during a period of training. To be considered in training, the individual must be actively involved in the research of a faculty member in their related area of study and must be gaining experience in this area as a result of their research assistantship. A stipend is not paid in exchange for quantifiable work performed or for financial gain. There are no deductions at the time of payment, and the individual will receive a T4A for the amount paid during the calendar year. Only graduate students and postdoctoral fellows may be paid a stipend.

A salary is paid when an employee-employer relationship exists and a quantifiable amount of work has been performed. Salary payments, whether hourly, recurring, or lump sum, are subject to mandatory source deductions and will include 4% vacation pay. Personnel with this type of income will receive a T4 denoting the total amount of employment earnings paid during the calendar year.

Carleton does not have established maximum rates of pay for research personnel (minimum rate of pay must follow minimum wage).

For all individuals paid a salary, the researcher must budget for additional costs, above and beyond the rate of pay to the individual, which will be charged to the grant.

For example, if an hourly rate of $25/hr is promised to the research personnel, then the researcher’s account will be charged as follows:

• Hourly rate: $25/hr
• Statutory deductions (includes 4% vacation pay): 12%
• Discretionary benefits, if applicable*: 15%
• Amount Charged to the fund: $32.75/hr

* Discretionary benefits may be included at the request of the researcher in consultation with their research personnel. Discretionary benefit rates vary based on the individual’s circumstances but are usually between 15-17%.

An Adjunct Research Professor can apply for research funds and will be appointed a grant contract for the grant term period. Please ask for assistance from a member of your Faculty Research Facilitation team for this calculation. The Adjunct Research Professor’s payroll profile needs to be approved by the Department Chair or Director.

There are three options for using PI fees in a grant:

1. Course Buyout: A faculty member wants to be free from teaching a course so they can spend additional time working on the project. The budget will have to cover the cost of a contract instructor to cover the course.
2. Salary Recovery. The University receives compensation for the PI’s time, and the budget is thus based on the PI’s salary plus approximately 18% benefits.
3. PI Fees: These are fees the PI is charging in addition to their normal salary, presumably because the project will require additional work over and above the 40% of time allocated to research in the CUASA collective agreement. The PI can charge whatever they want, but they will need to cover any associated Extended Health Benefits and Workplace Safety Insurance associated with the payment (about 2%) that do not have a maximum limit. The rest of the benefits are based on normal salary and do not scale with temporary increased income.

Note: The PI’s fees cannot be paid into a research account because the Canada Revenue Agency does not allow it.

First, it is highly recommended that you review the nature of your relationship with the individual you want to pay to ensure the Payroll Profile is the correct application to use. The Payroll Profile is used to authorize payment for casual employees. If the employee has never been paid by Carleton, have them visit the New Employees site for further details on our documentation process.

Account Codes describe the nature of transactions for Financial Services’ reporting purposes. As such, please consider the person you are hiring and the scope of the work being performed, as it will dictate the code to use. Commonly used account codes can be found on the Financial Services website. Need more help in post-award budget management? Contact Research Post-Award Administrators.

The Financial Administration Community Training and Solutions website has self-help sheets for navigating FAST MyResearch, specifically for finding financial transaction-level detail for a fund. The Research Post-Award Administrators can also help you locate the specific expense if you provide them via email with the following information: the index (fund) on which the expense was incurred, the financial application used to submit the expense, when you incurred the expense, and a copy of the receipt.

Procurement provides eShop assistance and resources for using the application on their eShop page. In relation to research funding, the Research Post-Award Administrators can also help you complete and submit the questionnaire. Prior to contacting them, please have the following information ready:

• What is the name and position of the person you are hiring?
• Have you worked with this contractor previously?
• What is the scope of the work?
• How does their work relate to the research?
• Which index (fund) are you planning to use?

Given that Carleton’s Procurement Policy stipulates specific requirements for equipment by total cost, the method of purchase depends on the expense amount. For general assistance in complying with the university’s procurement policy, contact Procurement Services and for research post-award expenses, contact the Research Post-Award Administrators.

Please complete the P-card application and submit it to your department’s head for approval. Once signed by your department, you will need to submit the application to the designated Procurement Officer, who will contact you with more details.

The RPA service can help determine if an expense is eligible to be charged to your index (fund). Please email us with details including:

• what product or service you would like to purchase;
• how much it will cost;
• how it relates to the research; and,
• which index (fund) you would like to use.

The best practice is to have a written record of the employment agreement. This record can be as simple as an email to the student that outlines the compensation, duration, and scope of work, as well as a statement that the agreement can be terminated if the terms are not met. When hiring a registered graduate student, we advise that the duration of employment is the same length as the semester during which they will be working.

Set up the student as an independent contractor in eShop. Once the work is complete, the student will provide an invoice for payment. Payments to independent contractors can be issued to those located domestically or internationally.

You can make a backdated payment through the Graduate RA system as long as the student was registered as a graduate student during this backdated term. The payment will be issued as a lump sum because it is for work done in the past.

Please notify your Research Financial Services Officer when you submit a backdated payment request.

Please note that lump sum payments are subject to higher statutory deductions – if a lump sum is paid, it is automatically interpreted as a monthly payment and taxed accordingly.