The value of flexible funding for collaborative biostatistics units in universities and academic medical centres

Collaborative biostatistics units within universities and academic medical centres operate under a wide range of different funding models; common to many of these models is the challenge of allocating time to activities that are not linked to a specific research project, such as professional development, mentorship and administrative tasks. The purpose of this paper is to describe a proposed model for ‘flexible funding’, that is, funding that is not linked to a specific research project, within a collaborative biostatistics unit and to detail the benefits and challenges associated with the proposed model. We present results from a qualitative study representing the perspectives of collaborative biostatisticians working under the proposed flexible funding model. In addition to providing examples of activities undertaken as part of time allocated to flexible funding, the qualitative results reveal several benefits of flexible funding both for a collaborative biostatistician (e.g., job satisfaction and professional development) and for the collaborative biostatistics unit as a whole (e.g., retention, process improvement, and leadership).