Facilities and Administrative Costs (F&A)

This page is directed toward PIs

Sponsored project agreements support the conduct of research, instruction, service, and other scholarly pursuits.  Funded agreements include an approved budget with direct and indirect costs (also referred to as Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs.  Direct costs are those readily identifiable and necessary for successful project conduct while F&A costs support the project by supplying facilities (building depreciation, physical plant, library expenses) and administrative costs(general administration, student services). This guide seeks to clarify how to assess and apply the correct F&A cost rate for a sponsored project. 

Specifically, direct costs are those which can be identified specifically with a particular sponsored project and which can be directly assigned to such activities, relatively easily and with a high degree of accuracy. For example, the supplies needed for a research project are easy to identify, as are the salaries of the individuals who will work on the project as are the travel expenses for those individuals.

Indirect costs are “costs incurred for a common or joint purpose benefiting more than one cost objective, and not readily assignable to the cost objectives.” Such costs are not directly allocable to one specific project because they support multiple projects. For instance, water, heating and air conditioning or other HVAC system capabilities that may be required to improve the air quality in many laboratories. These are legitimate expenses required to keep a research organization running, but they are not easily charged to one specific project when one research building may house hundreds of projects.