School Strategy and Pricing

As is hinted at in “Using QR as subsidy”, the Head of School needs to be armed with an overall research strategy and financial forecasts based on that strategy.

The strategy may address:

Valid areas of research, and their relative importance to the school;
The likely sponsors of such research;
The sponsor funding equation: the balance between the fEC recovered through the price, and the shortfalls met from QR and other sources.

As indicated in the graph “QR funding to live projects”, committing to a project has a multi-year impact (Dependant on duration of project). A sub-fEC priced contract will appropriate to itself a chunk of QR or other funding for a time span of 3 years (Dependant on duration of project). This “future impact” also needs to be reconciled with the School’s strategic plan.

Costing and Pricing