Research Project Budget Estimator Tool (RPBE)
We have recently launched RPBEv2.0! This upgrade includes connections to the Fairview ChargeMaster and allows researchers to calculate patient care costs. Read on for more information.
The Research Project Budget Estimator (RPBE) Tool allows research teams to build project budget estimates quickly to determine project feasibility when in the early stages of preparing to apply for a grant, external study collaboration, or contract with an industry partner. This tool is intended to work for everybody who plans research projects and needs to estimate budgets.
Here is a list of all the ways RPBE can help streamline the process of proposing your research budgets for grant applications:
- Explore, estimate, and compare expenses between different budget versions.
- Share your research budget estimate with your colleagues, leadership, or pre-award accountants.
- Comprehensively list all of your study needs, including patient care-costs, in one place.
- Access the Fairview ChargeMaster to more reliably estimate research and event-based budgets based on current procedures costs to assess feasibility of your project.
Note: The security settings for RPBE are set to staff only because there is personal and sensitive information not appropriate for public viewing.
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How Does RPBE Make Research Easier?
This tool is for internal estimating and drafting budgets only; it is not meant to take the place of working with pre-award grants and contracts team(s) to formalize sponsored project budgets. However, it can be shared with your pre-award grant and contracts team so they understand the idea behind the proposal more quickly and efficiently. RPBE budgets are helpful for informing conversations with co-investigators and pre-award accountants to start building budgets with SPA.
The RPBE tool incorporates the ability to pull salary information for collaborators (lookup feature by x500/employee ID), can automatically apply adjustments like the NIH Salary Cap, NIH Grad Student Compensation Cap and inflation rate to your budget calculations.
Lastly, RPBE is connected to the Fairview ChargeMaster to quickly look up procedure costs and automatically add them to your budget. When you are ready to submit your grant and need an official Fairview Pricing Request, you can copy your procedure codes from RPBE directly into the Fairview Pricing Request Form.
I Have an Idea for an Enhancement
Enhancements to improve functionality are made based on the feedback we receive from you. If you have any comments or ideas for future enhancements for this tool, please share them using this request form.
If you find an error in our tool, please let us know so we can fix it expediently!
Please contact Amanda Rueter (arueter@umn.edu) with any questions.