Indirect Cost (F&A) Rate Decision Guide

CU Boulder’s Federally-Negotiated Indirect Cost (F&A) Rate Agreement includes fourtypes of activities.The activity types of organized research, instruction, and other sponsored activities are defined in accordance with . The activity type of Intergovernmental Personnel Agreements (IPA) is defined in accordance with the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.

The following Indirect Cost (F&A) Rate Decision Guide is provided as information to campus. The Office of Contracts and Grants (OCG) will make the final determination on which rate applies to a project. Your Proposal Analyst will ensure that the appropriate indirect cost rate is included on your sponsored project budget.

Organized Research

Organized researchmeans all research and development activities of an institution that are separately budgeted and accounted for, including:

  • Sponsored research refers to research and development activities that are sponsored by federal and nonfederal agencies and organizations. This includes training of individuals in research techniques (research training).
  • University researchrefers to research and development activities that are separately budgeted and accounted for by the institution under an internal application of institutional funds. ().

The following are examples of organized research:

  • Awards for faculty to support their research activities
  • Externally-sponsored Career Awards (e.g. from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense) that support a faculty member’s research efforts
  • External funding to maintain facilities or equipment, or fund the operation of a center or facility
  • External support for the writing and publishing results
  • Awards for the support of the research activities of CU Boulder students or postdoctoral scholars, e.g. research training grants
  • Sponsored service activities

An organized researchrate may be appropriate if you can answer to any of the following:

  • Is there a systematic investigation, or are there activities including testing and evaluation?
  • Will there be a scholarly inquiry, analysis, critical study, testing, hypothesis, or data collection?
  • Will the findings be used to contribute to generalizable knowledge (i.e. meant to have an impact on others within the discipline) inside or outside the institution?
  • Will the results or outcomes be published, archived, presented, or viewed in some way as relevant beyond the specific participant population?
  • Are CU Boulder personnel using university facilities, equipment, or other aspects of the university research enterprise to provide a service to an external entity?

Organized research also includes sponsored services (also referred to as service activities). Sponsored services are activities performed by university personnel who have excess capacity to perform work for external entities. Tasks for sponsored services are similar to tasks done for sponsored projects but without the scientific investigation and conclusions. Sponsored services use university facilities, equipment, or other aspects of the university research enterprise. More information about sponsored services can be found on the Service Activities page.

Instruction

ԲٰܳپDzmeans the teaching and training activities of an institution, except for research training. Instruction activities include those offered for credits toward a degree or certificate, or on a non-credit basis, whether through regular academic departments or separate divisions.

  • Sponsored instruction and trainingrefers to specific instructional or training activity established by grant, contract, or cooperative agreement. For purposes of the cost principles, this activity may be considered a major function, even though an institution’s accounting treatment may include it in the instruction function.
  • Departmental researchmeans research, development, and scholarly activities that are not organized research, and, consequently, are not separately budgeted and accounted for ().

Instruction includes:

  • Any project for which the purpose is to instruct any student at any location. 鶹Ժ may be:
    • CU Boulder students or staff
    • 鶹Ժ or teachers in elementary or secondary schools
    • Other college or university faculty or staff
    • The general public
  • Curriculum development projects at any level, including projects which involve evaluation of curriculum or teaching methods. Note that such evaluation may be considered “research” when the main point of activity is data collection, evaluation, and reporting
  • Projects which involve CU Boulder students in community service activities for which they are receiving academic credit
  • General support for the writing of textbooks or reference books, instructional video, or software to be used as instructional materials and not related to a research project

ԲٰܳپDzrate may be appropriate if you can answer yes to any of the following:

  • Will the activity support curriculum development not related to a research or sponsored services project?
  • Will the activity support teaching or training activities (other than research training)?
  • Is the intended audience students enrolled at the university?

Other Sponsored Activities

Other sponsored activitiesmeans programs and projects that involve the performance of work other than instruction and organized research () Other sponsored activities do not use CU Boulder research resources, nor are they based on university research activities.

The following are examples of other sponsored activities:

  • Travel grants not related to research
  • Conferences, seminars, workshops, and symposia not related to research and funded by an external sponsor
    • The intended audience of these events is non-CU Boulder students, staff, or faculty, and the events do not meet the definition of instruction
  • Sponsorship of museums, arts, dance, and music programs
  • Projects that involve CU Boulder faculty, staff, or students in community service activities (where the CU Boulder students do not receive academic credit for their involvement)
  • Projects supporting library or museum collections, acquisitions, bibliographies, archiving, or cataloging
  • Activities that do not fall in the category of organized research or instruction and for which a sponsor allows use of a negotiated rate other than organized research

ther sponsored activitiesrate may be appropriate if you can answer yes to any of the following:

  • Is the intended audience the public, who will be receiving or participating in community service, with no university research resources used?
  • Is the intended activity a conference whose participants are not students enrolled at CU Boulder?
  • Is the intended activity travel to a conference (excluding travel related to research)?

Intergovernmental Personnel Agreements (IPAs)

IPAs provide for the temporary assignment of personnel between:

  • Federal, state, and local governments
  • Colleges and universities
  • Indian tribal governments
  • Federally-funded research and development centers
  • Other eligible organizations

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CU Boulder faculty, researchers, and staff may serve in the federal government on IPAs. CU Boulder employees serving on IPAs remain employees of CU Boulder.