Indirect Costs (IDC) Waiver approvals
The principal investigator (PI) must request an IDC Waiver from their respective school when either of the following is true:
- The rate is different from the university-negotiated IDC rate (found on the Commonly Requested Info page of ORTM’s website).
- The rate is different from the rate published in the sponsor request for proposal (RFP).
If the school approves this request, the department administrator must upload the documented IDC Waiver Approval under the Attachments tab of the associated SpartaGrants funding proposal (FP), as well as in the Budget section.
If a PI or department administrator is uncertain whether an IDC Waiver is needed for a particular proposal submission, please contact your pre-award specialist in ORTM.
F&A rate for subaward proposals to federal sponsors
If ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ is a subrecipient on a proposal to a federal agency as the prime sponsor (i.e. NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, NASA, and DOJ), our federally negotiated rate MUST be used in the subaward budget—unless there are stipulated indirect cost limitations on the RFP.
Even if a Pass-Through Entity (the direct sponsor) uses their F&A rate for their portion of the overall budget, ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ is still bound by our own F&A rate agreement with federal sponsors according to the Code of Federal Regulations:
F&A rate agreements and pass-through entities
A pass-through entity—a non-federal entity that provides a subaward to a subrecipient to carry out part of a federal project—is not authorized to make unilateral restrictions of indirect cost recovery. :
"All pass-through entities must: (a) Ensure that every subaward is clearly identified to the subrecipient as a subaward and includes the following information at the time of the subaward and if any of these data elements change, include the changes in subsequent subaward modification. When some of this information is not available, the pass-through entity must provide the best information available to describe the Federal award and subaward. Required information includes: […] (4) An approved federally recognized indirect cost rate negotiated between the subrecipient and the Federal Government."
If a "subrecipient already has a negotiated F&A rate with the federal government, the negotiated rate must be used" in a subaward, according to Q-134 of the (May 3, 2021).