Federal research funds are generally provided as cost reimbursable awards, i.e., the university bills the sponsor for costs incurred and is reimbursed for allowable costs. It is the goal of the university to maximize research award reimbursement by ensuring that costs incurred follow sponsor policy. The primary source of guidance on all aspects of federal sponsored awards is Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, commonly known as 2 CFR 200 or Uniform Guidance. The Cost Principles, which govern allowable costs are included in Subpart E of the Uniform Guidance.
Some federal awards may have restrictions more specific than the Uniform Guidance, such as contracts subject to Cost Accounting Standards (CAS). Such restrictions are noted in the Award Overview tab in the PI Portal. Non-federal sponsors may also have specific restriction that will be noted in the PI Portal. If a sponsor does not have spending guidance, the university’s purchasing policy applies.
In order to be reimbursable by a federal sponsor, a cost must be
Goods and services purchased under a sponsored award may often benefit more than one award. Such costs must be allocated to sponsored awards in proportion to the actual benefit received by the awards. If it is impractical to determine how much of the goods or services are actually used for each award, an allocation methodology must be developed and documented that reasonably estimates the actual benefit to each award. Costs are then distributed to each benefiting sponsored award using the allocation methodology. For on-going allocations, the methodology should be reviewed and documented no less often than annually.
Direct Costs are costs that can be identified specifically with a particular sponsored award, or that can be directly assigned to such activities relatively easily with a high degree of accuracy.
The total cost of a federal award is the sum of the allowable direct cost and the allocable F&A costs.
