Notice Number: NOT-OD-15-081

Key Dates
Release Date: March 18, 2015

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Purpose

The NIH has added a new optional form to the Overall component of all multi-project Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs). The "PHS Additional Indirect Costs" form allows NIH to gather the additional indirect cost information needed from the applicant organization to correctly calculate an application’s indirect costs when entire components of a multi-project application are led by collaborating organizations.

NIH multi-project applications include an Overall component and two or more other components (e.g., projects, cores). The Overall component is used to describe the proposed center or program as a whole and the specific people, costs, sites, and scope of the 'work' to be accomplished are outlined in the other components. Consequently, the Overall component does not have its own budget form. Instead, the composite application budget is system-calculated based on the data provided in the other components.

Many applicant organization's negotiated F&A agreements use a modified total direct cost (MTDC) base rate that allows them to apply the first $25,000 of a subaward's total costs to their own indirect cost base.

When the applicant organization leads a component and that component has subawards, the Indirect Costs section of the component's standard R&R Budget form can include the first $25,000 of each subaward in the indirect cost base.

However, when a component is led by a collaborating organization, the entire component is considered a subaward to the applicant organization. In these situations, the PHS Additional Indirect Costs form can be added to the Overall component to collect the additional indirect cost information necessary for the automated composite budget calculations to perform correctly. The form should only be used to collect the first $25,000 of costs for subaward organizations and should not reflect any costs accommodated elsewhere in the application.

Attempting to use the PHS Additional Indirect Costs form when the applicant organization leads all components in the application will result in an error preventing successful submission.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

NIH Grants Information
Email: [email protected] (preferred method of contact)
Telephone: 301-945-7573