Frequently Used Facts for Proposal SubmissionsThe first page (or more) of most grant applications asks for a lot of institutional information. Some of the most common pieces of information you will need are: University's Legal Name and Address: University of Florida Board of Trustees DSR's Authority to Negotiate, Accept and Execute Grants, Contracts, Donations, and other Research Related Agreements: Florida Statute 1004.22 Authority to Sign and Accept Applications, Proposals, Grants, Contracts, and other Research Related Agreements on behalf of the University:
Political Subdivision: Congressional District #6 Miscellaneous Information:
Most Psych grants will include human or animal subjects. It is usually OK to say approval is pending. However, if your grant does get a fundable score, you will be asked to provide proof of approval (NIH uses a Just in time –JIT-mechanism), so start the IACUC/IRB process soon!!
Budget Calculation InformationSo here’s why you’re writing the grant – to get money! It is important that you ask for the right amount. Be sure you ask for categories that are allowable by the sponsor and ask for an amount in each category that is appropriate for conducting the proposed work, no more and no less. Personnel costs typically account for 50-80% of a typical grant budget. Personnel may include:
Ask Psychology HR for current salary rates. Remember, those are 9 month salaries. You may ask for salary to cover you during the summer (some agencies set limits on this), and/or salary during the academic year to “buy out” of teaching one or more courses. For each course, you need 25% of your salary for that semester. Smaller agencies or foundations may not allow PI salary; in that case the College will voluntarily cost-share your time (letter needed see below). In addition to salary, you need to include fringe benefits for the % time or effort requested. Use the fixed fringe benefit rates for the salary admin plans listed below. DSR posts the approved rates each year as soon as they are notified of DHHS approval. These are the present rates: http://www.research.ufl.edu/research/facts.html#calcinfo
The myUFL grants budgeting system, and PHHP, have a Fringe Benefit Calculator. Graduate Student Salaries and Tuition. Whenever possible, you should include graduate student(s). Check with our fiscal office to determine the appropriate stipend for the year(s) you propose. The 2010 incoming class received a base TA stipend of $14,000/9 mo, but we recommend requesting the NIH predoctoral stipend of $21,180/12 mo (or prorated for % time): see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-10-047.html The NIH rate typically increases about $500/year, so you may include such an escalation for continuation years of your budget, if allowed by the sponsor. All proposals that include stipend support for graduate students, and if tuition is not prohibited by the sponsor, must include the appropriate tuition amount. Use the current in-state tuition rate for new graduate students. Add a 15% escalation factor for future budget periods (see below): Fees are not charged on Research Grants, but may be charged on Training Grants. Calculate tuition and fees using the University's Financial Services' tuition/fee calculator. Remember to add the 15% escalation factor to current rates to avoid shortfalls in future budget periods. Graduate health insurance is included in their fringe benefit rate in the Table above. Tuition Table (includes a 15% escalation factor, based on 24 credit hours, does not include fees)
Note: For grad students on a grant, and if allowed by the sponsor, you should ask for full tuition for the period requested at 24 credit hours per year (9+9+6 summer). In contrast, individual predoctoral fellowships (NRSA) currently pay only 60% of the tuition – and students MUST register for 32 credits (12+12+8) because this is a fellowship – the other 40% tuition waiver will be picked up by College or Department. No, we won’t pick it up for regular grants!! Other budget categories These are self-explanatory but usually need brief justification. For example: Supplies:
Travel:
Equipment:
Modular budgets NIH and some other agencies do not require that you precisely detail the direct costs within the budget, but rather that you request a certain number of modules. For NIH, each module is $25,000 and you may request up to 10 (RO1 type grants, less for R21). For this reason, we do not require that detailed budgets be prepared – but if you don’t ask for enough, that’s your problem. You still have to give a brief budget justification in the proposal. Notes: NIH budgets in excess of $250,000 direct cost per year do need itemization. Modules are direct costs - they do NOT include IDC -see below. Direct and indirect costs The sum of all of the above (salary, fringe, supplies, travel, equipment, etc) is the total direct costs for the year (most budgets ask for a year-by-year budget). Facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, more commonly known as indirect costs (IDC) are allowed by some agencies, but not others - see http://fa.ufl.edu/cg/capolicy/indirectcostrates.asp. The highest IDC are federal which is why these are the most valued grants. IDC support the research infrastructure at UF, with some coming back to the College, Department, and PI. For federal grants, IDC is a modified total direct cost (MTDC) based calculation. For our purposes, MTDC is total direct costs minus equipment and minus graduate tuition. The current NIH rate for on-campus research is 46.5%. For example, suppose your first year budget looks like this:
Post-award note: $205,895 is the maximum the University receives. If you then find you can get the equipment for $20,000 and you want to transfer the $15,000 difference to salaries, then you will have to pay 0.465 IDC on that portion, so in fact you only have $10,239 to play with. |
