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. 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 with its implementation and daily management. The Vice Chancellor for Research, in consultation with the Executive Director of Grants and Contracts Administration, 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.