Indirect Cost Report
About Indirect Cost Report
Facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, or indirect costs (IDC), are those incurred for general institutional operations benefitting a project but which cannot be easily assigned to a particular project. A federally approved percentage, the F&A rate, is applied to sponsored projects to recover allowable overhead costs associated with conducting research.
At SFSU, the F&A rate for research is 55% of total direct costs (salaries, project-specific equipment and supplies, travel and other activities). The 55% is broken into two components, the facilities rate (29%) and the administrative rate (26%). Funds collected for facilities reimburse the University for building and equipment depreciation, maintenance, utilities and custodial services. The administrative rate covers costs associated with supporting sponsored projects, including research administration and compliance, accounting, human resource management, procurement and travel.
For entirely instructionally related activities, the facilities component of the rate is lower and the overall rate for instruction projects is 50%.
Projects not involving instruction or research are considered “other sponsored activities” and the rate for these is 42.5%.
IDC Use and Distribution
IDC is collected and distributed to Administration and Finance and ORSP to cover costs related to supporting sponsored projects. IDC resides in a General Fund account and can be used for any purpose as long as it meets all CSU rules for non-recurring General Fund. Some 25% of the total IDC generated annually by an award is returned to the college or unit of the principal investigator.