Policy Regarding Gifts and Grants-in-aid in Support of Research by the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station
The West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station is a public entity. It was created for the public good, it is financed in large part by the public, it utilizes public facilities, and it depends on public funds for salaries and facilities. Scientists employed by the Experiment Station are public employees. Thus the research product of the Experiment Station rightfully belongs to the public. The Experiment Station serves as the programmatic and fiscal coordinator of all research done by faculty, staff and students of the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences. The role of the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station is to produce useful information and to disseminate it as widely as possible.

Faculty are regularly successful in obtaining substantial amounts of funding from a variety of sources to support research. This support takes the form of research grants, cooperative agreements and research contracts coming from a variety of federal, state, and private granting organizations. Proposals for such research often compete with others for the funding. In addition to these large grants and contracts, faculty also obtain small "grants-in-aid" or "research gifts" to support their research activities. Businesses, firms, and trade organizations are often the donors of these funds. These grants-in-aid are usually non-competitive, may be for a fixed cost, and they often support a narrow range of the investigator’s research activity.

The following policy applies to and governs small grants-in-aid, fixed cost contracts and research gifts. It governs the acceptance of all funds given to support such research by faculty, staff and students of the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences:

1. All gifts, grants-in-aid, small fixed-cost contracts or other funds received for the support of research shall be accompanied by a written agreement stating the research purpose to which the funds are to be applied, a budget, who is responsible for performance of the research (i.e. the principal investigator), the duration of the proposed work, and the reports or other deliverables, if any, expected by the grantor. The agreement shall be executed by the grantor and the WVU Research Corporation. (Note: Memorandum of Agreement forms are available from the Experiment Station office. See also Memorandum to all College faculty of September 2, 1999).

2. If the funds are an outright gift, with no expectations whatsoever on the part of the donor as to their use or for deliverables by the principal investigator, the written agreement shall so state. Such funds will be deposited in the WVU Foundation. The Dean of the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences is the Budget Officer for all such funds. All other funds will be deposited in account with the WVU Research Corporation.

3. Budgets (other than for outright gifts) will be included with the written agreement. Facilities and Administration (F&A) costs (i.e. indirect costs, overhead) will be included in the budget unless prior approval is received from the WVU Office of Sponsored Programs to waive such project costs. The WVU Research Corporation may assess the operating budget of investigator’s Division for the F&A costs if such costs are not included in the project budget and have not been waived.

A. Grants-in-aid, research gifts and fixed-cost contracts greater than $10,000 in total amount (direct and indirect costs) will include the current full University F&A rate for campus or off-campus research, as appropriate. In 1999 the on-campus F&A rate is 46% of direct costs and the off-campus rate is 25% of direct costs.

4. The written agreement shall state that the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station has the right to publish information resulting from activities supported by the funds received without review or permission of the grantor.

5. If the funds given are substantial and cover all costs of the outlined work including salaries, supplies, travel, finance and administration costs, and employee benefits, consideration may be given to providing the donor access to the data prior to publication, but in no case will publication by the Experiment Station be delayed more than six months. Nor will there be any agreement to edit or otherwise influence publication of the results.