General
- Where payroll is eligible to be paid from a research grant, the accompanying benefits should be charged to the same research work order unless specifically ineligible.
- If an employee or student is paid from more than one research project, the cost may be split proportionately between more than one work order.
Graduate Research Student Payments
- Refer to the Graduate Research Studentship (GRS) vs. Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA) document on the Human Resources website to help differentiate compensation paid through Quest from that paid through payroll.
- GRS payments can be made through Quest which results in different tax implications to the payee and the University than payroll transactions.
- All payments made through Quest are completed by the appropriate graduate studies coordinator, with the approval of the principal investigator (PI).
Payroll Payments
- The hiring and payment of other student or technical staff, paid casually or on an ongoing basis, are completed via the Payroll department.
- Information and guidelines on other types of payments that are not considered regular employment earnings, such as honorariums, research participant payments, fee for service and living allowance payments, can be found here.
Post-doctoral fellow salary appointments
Post-doctoral fellow (PDF) salaries are an eligible expense on many research accounts. When considering hiring a PDF on a research account, it should be noted that:
- The Graduate Studies & Postdoctoral Affairs Office provides information about benefits and other services available to PDFs
- The Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence (ORF-RE) limits PDF appointments to $50,000 / year (including benefits); PDF salaries can be supplemented by other funds. This restriction does not apply to funds matched to ORF funds. Human Resources has developed a tool to estimate benefit costs to assist.