FACILITIES
AND ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS
I. INTRODUCTION
Facilities and Administrative (F&A) (also known
as indirect or overhead) costs are the general support
expenses relating to research and sponsored programs
that are incurred for common objectives of the University
and therefore cannot be readily identified with a
particular sponsored award. Formulas have been developed
to allocate various categories of F&A costs across
a series of major higher education functions. The
total F&A costs attributable to research and sponsored
programs are compared to the direct costs of those
activities to derive the percentage of F&A costs
to direct costs. This percentage, the F&A cost
rate, is then applied to the direct costs of research
and creative activity and is the means by which the
University is reimbursed for facilities and administrative
costs associated with direct cost expenditures. Facilities
and administrative costs are real expenses of the
University. Examples include utilities, libraries,
departmental research administration, and research
support and compliance staff in central administration.
II. POLICY
Facilities and administrative costs will be reimbursed
by a federal sponsoring agency at their UNC Charlotte
negotiated F&A rate. These rates can be found
on the Research at UNC Charlotte website (http://www.research.uncc.edu/rs/indirectcost.cfm).
The University expects all non-federal sponsored programs
to be reimbursed for their full costs, both direct
and F&A.
III. IMPLEMENTATION
The
Provost is responsible for this policy and has charged
the Vice Chancellor for Research and Federal Relations
with its implementation and daily management. The
Vice Chancellor for Research and Federal Relations,
in consultation with the Director of Sponsored Programs
in Financial Services, will establish guidelines
for the implementation of F&A cost reimbursement
and will be the University’s principal point
of contact for F&A cost issues. All exceptions
to full F&A cost recovery must be submitted to
that office for approval.
