Facilities & Administration (F&A) costs, also known as “indirect costs,” are reimbursement of costs incurred by the university in support of sponsored project activities that cannot be identified readily and specifically with a particular sponsored project. Indirect Costs are an essential part of the total costs of sponsored projects and are necessary for safely, securely, efficiently, and effectively conducting them. Unlike the direct costs of projects, such as project-specific salaries and supplies, F&A costs are not easily assignable at the project level.
F&A includes the costs of building and maintaining state-of-the-art research laboratories, facilitating high-speed data processing, compliance with national security protections (e.g., export controls, cybersecurity, research data security), human subject research safety protocols, radiation safety and hazardous waste disposal; personnel required to support essential administrative and regulatory compliance work, maintenance staff, and other activities necessary for supporting research including processing of payroll and goods and services transactions on projects.
The federal government and other sponsors reimburse the University for an agreed-upon proportion of the F&A costs the institution incurred to conduct sponsored projects based upon the F&A cost reimbursement rates negotiated with the institution.
Costs of Federally Sponsored Research | Facilities and Administrative Costs of Research