Facilities and Administration Costs

F&A Costs are those costs associated with the infrastructure that supports the research entity (buildings, maintenance, administrative support, etc) and which cannot be easily allocated to a project. These costs are a real part of conducting research. F&A costs should be recovered to the maximum extent possible. The institutional rates are determined by the university in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The negotiations are handled by personnel of the Finance division of the VP for Finance and Administration. The negotiated rate is used as the standard, but in some cases, lower F&A cost rates are accepted by the university with the approval of the VP for Research. Certain sponsors have policies that establish caps on F&A recovery. Such policies are typically stated in the agency’s guidelines and are applied uniformly to all award recipients.

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