I have a visitor in my lab who is supported by his/her home foreign institution. S/he is not funded by any of my federal grants. Do I need to account for this visitor in proposals or progress reports? If so, how?

We do not have specific guidance from all sponsors on this topic, however, per NIH guidelines, this person’s work on the project should be documented as follows:

  • As “Other Support” because the externally funded individual is a “resource available in direct support of [your] research endeavors.” The NIH recently clarified that “all research resources including, but not limited to, foreign financial support, research or laboratory personnel, lab space, scientific materials, … must be reported.”
  • As a “Participant” in the progress report if the person worked on a project for more than a month in any given year. Additionally, the person’s “primary affiliation” is determined by where the work was done for the project: if the individual is affiliated with a foreign organization but worked on the award solely in the U.S., the “primary affiliation” is not foreign; if work was performed while outside of the U.S., the primary affiliation should be noted as foreign.
  • As a “Foreign Component” if the individual performed part of the work while in your UMass Chan lab, but also made a significant contribution to the project a from his/her home institution, or any other foreign location (e.g. collecting data at a foreign site, running samples on instrumentation there, and/or will be a co-author on publications arising from the grant).