I am an undergraduate student being paid a (relatively speaking) hefty monthly research stipend. I need only some of this money to pay off my university fees and living costs, since I have wonderfully generous parents.
The research projects I work on officially revolve around applied problems in math biology. Lately, I have been interested in Baez's work on "network theory", but because of full course load, along with the research project I am responsible for, I don't have the time to explore these ideas as I'd like to.
I have some ideas for pure math projects that involve extending Baez's nascent network theory ideas to problems in biology. I also have some ideas for tools that could be made in order to help a researcher formally analyze interaction systems.
These ideas are completely tangential to my own work (for the moment), although if I were able to set up the groundwork for them to the point where I am able to see that they do have potential, I'd love to bring it up with my professor.
One idea I have had recently is that I could hire my own "research assistants" out of my stipend (I am allowed to spend it as I like, right)? I could provide them with my motivations, and give them "guidance" (I don't know how capable I would be of this) through ongoing communication. This way, I would be able to explore my ideas, even if I don't personally have the energy and time to see them through right now. The alternative of course, is that I buckle up and find time from somewhere (e.g. by not writing this post) to work on the ideas, or put them away for a later date when I do have time.
So, is hiring my own research assistants at this time ethically questionable?
Answer
All that jumps out at me is that you won't be able to find and supervise someone capable enough for the amount of money you have, which I assume is on the order of tuition or less. You know research is really, really expensive right? People like Ph.D. students - and yourself - do it for cheap out of extreme valuing of their own educational and research experience.
You can't provide a six figure salary (what an industry researcher costs), you can't hire out your own research passions to someone; you have no play.
This, in theory, comes up in the professional world too. As a rule you can't really hire someone better than you to solve your problems... you'll run out of budget for them as they bleed your personal checkbook, or they'll get hired and take over your work (which is probably very bad for you). There's no "ethics", it stops at the pragmatics.
I think the ethics of this are kind of a moot point because there's cultural reasons this can't really come up. A more practical ethical question might be if you can hire researchers to work on parts of your project for you. That's a pretty different question, but I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, that's what a research budget is for (and your undergraduate underlings would of course appear as co-authors, which is a big part of why they took the opportunity).
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