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A “person month” is the metric for expressing the effort (amount of time) principal investigators (PIs), faculty and other senior personnel devote to a specific project. The effort is based on the type of appointment of the individual with the organization; e.g., calendar year (CY), academic year (AY), and/or summer term (SM); and the organization’s definition of such. For instance, some institutions define the academic year as a 9-month appointment while others define it as a 10-month appointment.
Conversion of percentage of effort to person months is straight-forward. To calculate person months, multiply the percentage of your effort associated with the project times the number of months of your appointment. For example:
25% of a 9 month academic year appointment equals 2.25 (AY) person months (9 x 0.25= 2.25)
10% of a 12 month calendar appointment equals 1.2 (CY) person months (12 x 0.10 = 1.2)
35% of a 3 month summer term appointment equals 1.05 (SM) person months (3 x 0.35= 1.05)
10% of a 0.5 FTE 12 month appointment equals 0.6 (CY) person months (12 x .5 X .1 = 0.6)
Another example:
If the regular pay schedule of an institution is a 9 month academic year and the PI will devote 9 months at 30% time/effort and 3 months summer term at 30% time/effort to the project, then 2.7 academic months and .9 summer months should be listed in the academic and summer term blocks of the application (9 x 30% = 2.7 person months; 3 x 30%= .9)
An Excel-based Percent of Time & Effort to Person Months Calculator is available on grants.nih.gov.
Have additional questions related to NIH’s usage of “person months”? Visit our page of frequently asked questions (FAQs) on this topic.
This was extremely helpful. Thank you!
How do you calculate one half month on a 12 month contract?
Half a month’s time would be 0.5, but be sure to check out our FAQs on person months for more information and guidance: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/person_months_Faqs.htm#1040
Since it’s a 12-month Contract you will just use the 12 months calendar formulae,
You will use the Calendar Year (CY) where you divide your annual salary with 12 ie
1/12 * x= Y (Your monthly salary will Y), then depending on the % of effort you use,
multiply with the CY i.e (%* CY) then you will get CY Months, then Multiply your
Your monthly salary and the CY months to get the budget figure for that effort.
i.e (Y*CY Months)
How 9 months is calculated with 22 days work in a month
I found this very useful and helpful.
How would a CM be listed for a person who is .5 FTE and put 50% of that FTE on a grant/contract? Our department has 12 month faculty.
I have 15 years of work experience how I will convert it into person-months
I have same question? Do anyone have idea. How to calculate it?
How would I convert a 14year experience of into a person-months?
How to calculate 15% of my time on a six-month project, within a 12-month appointment?
Please see our FAQs for more example calculations: https://grants.nih.gov/faqs#/person-months.htm?anchor=question50734
What is the % effort for someone working 0.5 summer months? What is the formula to calculate % effort during the 3 summer months? I can’t get it right! Is it 4.5% effort? Please help. Thanks, June
Does person month also imply salary is drawn from that project? e.g. A researcher puts in one day per month (0.05 person months, calendar year) for consultation on a project but does not draw a salary/compensation from the project. Would this still be put as 0.05?
The person months presented should represent the total effort on the grant regardless of compensation.