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Costing and Planning for Research Projects: Labour, Time, and Budget Considerations

Effective research costing involves careful planning and consideration of labour-intensive aspects. Key steps include developing a critical path, identifying milestones, and factoring in design time, review time, and revisions. Understanding the distribution of time (design: 20%, data collection: 50%, reporting: 30%) and estimating labour costs (e.g., per diem calculations) are crucial. The process also encompasses literature reviews, key informant interviews, focus groups, and surveys, each with distinct costs and requirements. Proper budgeting ensures successful project outcomes.

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Costing and Planning for Research Projects: Labour, Time, and Budget Considerations

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  1. Costing Research

  2. Research is labour intensive • Key steps in costing • Develop a critical path for the work • Identify milestones when key deliverables will be needed • Factor in • Design time • Review time • Time to revise/reflect • Time for rewriting deliverables is a function the length of the report, the number of reviewers and level of reviewers • Percent of time • Design (20%) • Data collection/cleaning/analysis (50%) • Reporting/Revising (30%)

  3. Estimating labour costs Per diem = (base daily salary + 14% + 50%) • 14% - benefits • 50% - contribution to overhead Example a. Annual salary = $60,000 Per Diem = $400 (about $60 per hour) b. Annual salary = $100,000 Per Diem = $700 ($80 per hour) Rates will rise with experience

  4. Literature Reviews • Very fast to accumulate references • Slower to get the right references • Skill in searching • Boolean logic • Multiple data bases • Skill in sorting/ranking • Need to decide the role of the Lit Review • Scoping recent trends (brief 10 page overview) – 40 hours • Identifying or policy scope (30 page synopsis) – 120 hours • State of the art (100 pages with peer review) – 400+ hours plus honoria.

  5. Key informant interviews • Plan on 60 minutes at the maximum • Plan on 10 – 12 key issues • This is a guided conversation and not a standardized questionnaire. • Allocation of time (per interview) • Guide design/review (1 hour) • Contact/communication/scheduling (.5 hour) • Interview (1 hour) (assume by phone and notes taken on computer and audio recorded) • Notes (1.5 hours) (includes review by KI) • Report (1.5) – includes coding • Therefore 50 interviews will require $18,000 if completed by a fairly senior staff person ($80/hour) • This assumes the 60 minutes for interviewing is correct. Longer interviews collected more data and analysis ---- the entire cost structure shifts.

  6. Focus groups • Key cost items include • Recruiting (easiest if this is an outcome of a survey, much harder from a general list). This can be anywhere from $10 - $100 per attendee. • Developing the guide • Moderator (time to prepare and conduct each group) • Honoraria ($50 is the minimum - $250 is the minimum for professionals) • Reporting (10 hours to summarize each group and 20 hours for an integrated report). • Example • Focus group of general population will typically cost $3000 per group • Specialized groups will cost $5000+ • “Star” moderators will often charge $10,000 per group for their time.

  7. Surveys • Telephone surveys • Flow rate is key. • 30 items implies a flow rate of 2 per hour in the general population • Special populations require more time unless enrolled form a client list, in which case pre-survey notice is needed. • General population by telephone ($30 - $40) per completion (800 completions will cost about $15,000 for a 30 closed item survey). • Open (verbatim question boost costs • On-line surveys • On-line surveys in evaluation require herding the clients to a web site to ensure that only target respondents participate and participate only once. • In general on-line surveys are not significantly cheaper than telephone surveys, but they can boost response rates, especially when clients have the option of how to respond. • Key issue is that lists of e-mail addresses are often outdated and these always require a separate letter to legitimate the survey. • Mixed Mode surveys • Letter, with website and PIN, followed by phone call with an invitation to visit the web site or complete on the phone… regular mail, e-mail, phone follow-up. • Sample size and questionnaire complexity drive the costs.

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