However, when these personnel perform project specific activities or extraordinary amounts of routine business activities associated with large projects that involve multiple investigators, they may be direct charged according to the relative time spent on the project. Sponsored projects administration Libraries A rate is calculated for each of the above mentioned components based on methods prescribed in OMB Circular A-21, and the total of these individual rate components results in a rate that is subject to negotiation with and approval by federal officials. There is also a rate calculated for off-campus projects and there may be separate rates calculated for research, instruction and other sponsored activities. The off-campus rate includes only the administrative components and is applied to those projects that are conducted predominantly in facilities not owned, leased or rented by a university. There are usually some differences in the interpretation of the rate proposal processes that lead to compromises between federal negotiators and university officials in arriving at a final rate agreement.
Federal negotiators prefer to negotiate rate agreements for multiple years.
There is no single answer to this question. For example, if two universities have the same direct cost research base and one has twice as many net square feet of space assigned to research, the facilities rate component for the university with twice the net square footage will be approximately twice that of the other university. A university s ability to secure funds to construct, upgrade and maintain research facilities. Universities that are able to spend money to renovate existing research facilities and construct new research facilities experience a higher level of costs than universities that are unable to do so. These higher costs are reflected in their recovery rates for building use.