These proposals may be for equipment or instrumentation grants, where the purpose of the grant is to buy equipment and the recipient is required to share the cost with the sponsor, or research-oriented grants or contracts where the purchase of equipment required for the research is an allowable expense included in the proposal and award. Purchase and acquisition must occur during the period of performance. The portion of the purchase price paid by the University must be charged directly to a cost sharing account in support of the award. Other Direct Costs Allowable direct costs other than salaries, fringe benefits, or equipment may be committed by the PI as cost sharing on the proposal budget. See Section 7 for expenses that may not be offered as cost sharing.
Indirect costs are real costs of conducting instruction and research.
PIs may take advantage of the automatic cost sharing of indirect costs, and include them on the proposal budget. PIs may also include any waived indirect costs as University cost sharing in proposals. The PI may NOT utilize funds from another federal award as the source of cost sharing, except as authorized by statute. Funds for cost-shared expenditures are typically identified from among gift, endowment income, operating budget, or other department designated funds. After the end of the project performance period, when unanticipated project expenses result in more charges to a sponsored account than were funded, the amount of the overdraft is accounted for in the same manner as cost sharing.