Here’s one creative, albeit seemingly accidental way, to get a 50% boost for your multi-million dollar research grant: Flout the rules, say you’re sorry, and then argue that you can only make up for it with extra cash.

That’s apparently what happened with Evan Snyder, a neuroscientist at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Last April, Snyder was awarded $3.6 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to test a therapy for Parkinson’s disease in African green monkeys. But his application involved conducting the experiments at the Axion/St. Kitts Biomedical Research Center in St. Kitts, West Indies — not in California — which violates the agency’s ban on out-of-state spending. To hold the trials in the Golden State and bring the project into compliance would require an additional $1.85 million dollars, Snyder claimed.

The California stem cell agency agreed. At a meeting in Sacramento today, CIRM directors approved the added allowance, concluding that the extra money was needed for Snyder to meet the objectives of the original proposal in California.

You can read more about the controversial grant at the California Stem Cell Report blog.