Understanding Effort
Effort is the portion of time spent on a given professional activity expressed as a percentage of the total professional activity for which an individual is employed by the University of California. Total professional activity includes research, teaching, patient care, administrative and other University appointed activities.
Effort is divided into three categories:
- Federally Sponsored Projects cover effort spent conducting or administratively supporting federal or federal flow-through projects for research, training or public service.
- Other Sponsored Projects are projects funded by non-federal sponsors, such as state agencies or private organizations.
- Non-Sponsored Activities are funded by the University and include University-funded research as well as activities like instruction, departmental research, public service, and administration.
An individual’s effort is expressed as a percentage of the total amount of time spent on work-related activities (instruction, research, administration, etc.) for which the University compensates an individual. Effort always equals 100% regardless of the number of hours worked or the percentage of the appointment.
Generally, total effort and salary should not be assigned to sponsored projects in a given period, because many faculty, academic and staff members are engaged in teaching, public service, administrative, and other duties in addition to their work on sponsored projects. Accordingly, unless the circumstances demonstrably warrant otherwise, the total effort and salary should not reflect 100% to sponsored projects in a given period.
How Effort Is Used at UCSF
In April 2021, UCSF implemented the award verification procedure to support Principal Investigators (PIs) in meeting the requirements of the Uniform Guidance for federal awards. With the transition to award verification, PIs ceased certifying effort using the Effort Reporting System (ERS).
Effort is still an essential component of the project life cycle and is used across award activities, including:
- Proposal development
- Progress reports
- Funding entry in UCPath
Effort commitments are made to a sponsor for faculty and staff to provide a pre-determined and pre-approved amount of time working on a project at proposal and award execution. When identified as the PI, Co-PI or key personnel, pre-approval is typically needed when the actual effort will vary from the pre-approved amount over a set threshold. The continued monitoring of actual effort expended on a project and salary paid from awards is imperative. Effort and salary paid from awards should align with the award budget, terms, and conditions within allowed variances. Awards should be monitored for variances outside of allowed levels and when identified and validated, approval should be requested.
How Effort Is Different Than Pay
It is important to understand the distinction between payroll distributions and effort distributions. Payroll distributions reflect the allocation of an individual’s salary, while effort distribution reflects the allocation of an individual’s time to individual projects independent of salary. While payroll distributions to sponsored agreements may be initially based upon the planned or estimated workload, the actual effort of each individual working on sponsored agreements must be monitored, with the distribution modified as necessary based on variances above allowed thresholds between the estimated and actual effort.
Related Topics
Refer to the Award Verification section of the Controller's Office website for the current procedure used by UCSF to meet federal guidelines under Uniform Guidance and UCSF Campus Administrative Policy 300-19, including escalations for late verifications.
Read about UCSF’s retired effort reporting procedure using the Effort Reporting System, which was retired on June 30, 2022.