u/RemarkableToast

I have a PI who wants to reduce about 10% of his partner budgets (18 subs) to cover digital twin software and a full time postdoc for 5 years.

I've never seen a PI push for an unsolicited budget modification during the negotiations process. The PM seems to be okay with it, but hasn't given us a timeframe. I've tried talking him out of it and he's insistent.

And the fun part - this is a large DOE (I think it's ARPA-E) with 1:1 cost match requirement. We're going to need 19 new cost share letters. I think it will take at least a couple weeks if everything goes well, and I'm worried any delays here could tank the whole project.

Any suggestions on strategy? Is this as bad of an idea as I think it is?