What happens if a professor is unable to get a PhD student for a part of their grant? Suppose a professor has received a grant from which they have to hire three PhD students, two for experimental studies and one for computational. The grant started from January 2020 and will end in 2023. Now, the professor is able to hire 2 positions for experimental research. However, they are not being able to fill the computational research spot.
What will happen to the grant money if they are unable to find anyone for that position? Will they have to hire just anyone to fill the position out of desperation?
This is a question about Canadian academia.
The exact rules may differ for each funder. However, typically, the PI writes a brief explanation why the PhD student could not be found. Then they either return a part of the budget to the funder and possibly adjust the project duration / scope accordingly, or as to redirect these funds to support the project in alternative way (e.g. hiring a postdoc instead of PhD).