Quality assurance of the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC)
It is incumbent on the UK Research Councils to ensure that the TRAC methodology is applied correctly and in an appropriate way for costing research projects. This section outlines the current process for the quality assurance of TRAC and its historical context.
Quality Assurance and Validation (QAV) process
In April 2006 the Research Councils began to fund research projects in higher education institutions (HEIs) based on full economic costs using TRACfEC methods. The Research Councils UK (RCUK) established the QAV process to ensure that TRAC methods have been implemented appropriately in HEIs and that the rates charged on research projects have been calculated correctly.
Further information about the QAV process is available on the RCUK web-site.
Background to the QAV process
The QAV replaces a process established in March 2004, designed to provide assurance that HEIs had successfully implemented the TRAC, and that there was a solid foundation for extending the TRAC methodology for forecasting full economic costs (fEC) at project level.
Further details of this quality assurance process are available.
In August 2005, a final report on the quality assurance of implementation by institutions of TRAC was published, along with HEFCE circular letter 24/2005, which highlights the key findings. The report is available to download below.
Quality assurance review of TRAC: final report
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Last updated 7 May 2008