Research budgeting and funding operations — study budget construction, cost per participant and per insight, burn against milestones, and portfolio prioritisation by decision value.
SkillScore83Maintained
Automatic
◆Finance & Accounting pack
Last verified 8/20/2026
What it changes
Passed 18 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 12 of 22 without it.
Without skill57%
With skill83%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Ranks portfolio projects by expected decision value per unit cost.
Applies a reversibility multiplier of 1.0 for one-way door decisions.
Requires verifying milestone weights before celebrating a CPI above 1.05.
and 4 more in the full report
6 fixed13 passed either way4 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+26 pp
Tokens
+150%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
0%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/20/2026v119 of 23 cases passed with skill · 22 comparable
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 5 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 5
Prompt
An executive team is deciding whether to acquire a proprietary lab platform for $5M, which is an irreversible commitment (a one-way door). What reversibility multiplier should be used in the expected decision value formula?
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Applies a reversibility multiplier of 1.0 for one-way door decisions.
Missed
Passed
case-22 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/20/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md239 lines10 filesincludes scripts
Research Finance
The money side of research operations: building a study budget that funds what
the study will actually consume, tracking spend against delivery rather than
against the calendar, and deciding which research to fund when the portfolio
asks for more than the budget holds.
When to use this skill
Costing a study before a funding request, where the budget will be
scrutinised line by line and a missing line item becomes unfunded work
Answering "what does this cost per participant" — the number every funder,
finance partner, and sponsor asks first
Tracking a programme mid-flight and needing to know whether the spend is
buying delivery or just buying time
Forecasting an overrun early enough to descope rather than late enough to
need supplementary funding
Prioritising a research portfolio that asks for more than the budget
available
Defending a research budget against a finance partner who sees a cost
centre and needs to see decision value
Inputs the skill expects
Unit costs: per participant, per site, per site-month, and fixed programme costs
Enrolment target, screen failure rate, site count, and duration
Contingency and overhead rates your organisation applies
For tracking: budget at completion, weighted milestones with completion, and
planned versus actual spend by period
For portfolio work: each study's cost, the value of the decision it informs,
and the probability it changes that decision
Decision deadlines — a study that lands after the decision is worth nothing
Clarify First
Before generating, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:
Screen failure or recruitment yield rate — budgets built on enrolled participants alone systematically under-fund screening, which is real work on real people
Whether overhead and contingency are inside or outside the quoted number — the same study is quoted at wildly different totals depending on this, and the mismatch surfaces after the award
The decision each study informs and its value — without it a portfolio can only be ranked by cost, which funds the cheap studies rather than the valuable ones
Same roadmap, three audiences. Produce executive, customer, and internal roadmap variants with audience-appropriate framing, detail, and risk language. Use for quarterly roadmap publication, board packets, and customer/sales roadmaps.