Bench fees: typical procedure and rates for visiting students?

Question

Over the summer I visited a research station at a different university to collect data for my PhD work. I received an invoice (nearly two months after the fact) for bench fees related to my stay in the amount of $100/day. I used a few square feet of floor space in one of the labs and some outdoor space as well, but brought all my own equipment and materials.

This is my first time visiting a different university, so this is new to me. The communication from the research station before my visit was exceptionally poor, not a single one of my emails (over the span of months) was replied to when I tried to communicate with my sponsor, but since they accepted my payment for lodging I showed up. I guess I should have assumed there would be fees on top of what I already paid associated with my stay, but as I mentioned I am new to this, and working in an interdisciplinary field so my advisor is not familiar with the customs of this other field.

My specific questions are:

1) What is a typical day rate for bench fees, considering the visiting student has provided all their own equipment and materials? (is there a typical rate?)

2) Is it normal to have no communication of any fees beforehand (or during the stay) only to be sent an invoice after the fact? Perhaps I am being unreasonable to expect that this be communicated up front.

My qualm is not with paying the fees, I understand that it costs money to run a research station, but since none of this was communicated ahead of time I did not budget it into my grant for this fieldwork. Also, $100/day seems excessive for floor space, but perhaps that is the going rate.

Answer 1

I'm not in this field, so I can't comment on whether the amount is reasonable. But at something like a marine biology research station, where the site itself is uniquely suited for researchers coming to do their own work there, it doesn't seem surprising that some sort of charge would be imposed. In response to other posters, it doesn't seem analogous to when you go to another university to collaborate and are given a desk. It seems to me more like renting time on a telescope: it's a specialized facility which the university will allow visitors to use, if they pay.

If this is standard in the field, it might suggest that you ought to have suspected that there would be a fee, and you could have asked specifically how much it would cost. But they really should have proactively disclosed it.

Anyhow, I would offer the following general advice:

• Since you say you're a PhD student, get your advisor involved. A professor will be more likely to be taken seriously in trying to negotiate the fee.

• I would suggest that you (or your advisor) should play up the argument "since we didn't know about the fee, we couldn't include it in our grant funding request". The research station will be used to people paying the bench fees from grant funds. If you don't have grant funds available to pay the fee, and the reason you don't have any funds is because of their poor communication, then this is more likely to encourage them to give you a reduction or waiver.

• Don't agree to pay the fee out of your own pocket, except as a very last resort. It's a research expense, and one way or another, your university and/or funding agency ought to pay. Talk to your advisor about possible ways to get it paid.

Answer 2

If somebody is going to charge me money for a service when I'm visiting an off-campus site (or even something on-campus), I want to know about it in advance. The first thing they should have mentioned in any sort of response—or post on a website—is that it's not a free service. Without such information, people can't make an informed decision whether or not the service is worth the cost.

So I would certainly question this invoice and its fairness. (As for the cost, that also seems a bit high, but I can't really comment on a "going rate" for such a service.)

Answer 3

I completely agree with other replies here saying that such charges have to be discussed before the actual visit. I also agree that $100 per day seems quite excessive.

However, it should be noted, that Universities do successfully charge such fees for the privilege of using the space on a regular basis. At least in the UK, every grant application has to budget for direct costs (such as researchers' salary and consumables) and indirect costs, included so-called overheads charged by the University. Overheads are the payments covering the costs incurred by the University for maintaining it's operation (such as cleaning, heating, etc). It may or may not include the use of special equipment — the access to the lab is sometimes charged on top of other overheads. In the UK a typical overhead fee is ~100-110% of the gross salary, amounting to ~£50000 p.a. or ~£140 per day. I have not seen any justification/break-down of the overheads fees in the public domain. Afaik, most researchers working at the UK have to simply agree with such payment and include it in the grant budget.

Answer 4

aeismail already comments on the ludicracy and I agree with those words, so I'll comment on the $100/day ~ $3000/month ~ $15000/team (of five)/month, which seems rather a lot when compared to typical city rents (to accommodate five people). Now, that's an incredibly crude way to estimate (especially as I've ignored the lab aspect), but costs vary considerably between cities, so it's difficult to get a better figure without more details (and factoring lab overheads is more work).