Explanation of soft money academia

For those of you not in academia, or new to it, a little context.

In some ways, I’m a small business owner masquerading as a university employee. I’m 100% soft money. I cover my salary, benefits, and those of any staff members I work with, typically through grants.

I’m starting my 5th year on faculty, and it still can be hard to get sufficient salary and resources for what a job requires. For example, I have a career development award that is supposed to fund 75% of my time…but because of the cost of living in the Bay Area it funds about 45% of my time…and about 20% of the cost of the research proposed.

When I’m asked to take on new roles or responsibilities, I have to consider whether they are funded. If they aren’t funded, am I willing to give up time with my family or sleep or exercise? If they are funded, is it sufficient for the effort needed? Which activities are prudent investments, which might prove to be distractions that make longer-term goals more challenging, and how I can avoid doing unpaid or unrewarded work?

My next step is applying for an NIH R01 award to request 5 years of funding where I can request a percent of my time be funded, as well as the resources needed for the scientific question. For a qualitative project, I will likely request 40-50% effort since I can conduct data collection and analysis myself, though I’ll work with a team.

Eventually, I’ll likely aim to have 2-3 R01s at a time, in addition to serving as a co-investigator on colleague’s grants and paid service roles. My clinician-investigator colleagues typically carry one less R01 because of their clinical responsibilities.