Costing your research project

Find information to help you with costing your research project.

All externally funded research applications need to be costed using Full Economic Costing (FEC) methodology. Proposals for external research funding need to be developed and internally approved in Worktribe before submitting the application to the funder.

Directly Incurred (DI) costs

DI staff costs

DI staff will work on a specific research project (either full- or part-time) and their payroll costs are charged directly to the project. All costs need to be justified in the case for support when applying.

Research staff (researchers, research nurses, clinical research fellows)

• Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) defines a project researcher as “anyone who will make a significant intellectual contribution to a research project. Typically such a person would be qualified to carry out independent or supervised research, might provide an academic lead for research or could provide expert advice to a research project”
• Research staff charged as DI on more than 1 project will need to be supported by timesheets for some funders.

Non-research staff

• Technicians (if eligible within terms and conditions of funder)
• Administrative Staff (if eligible within terms and conditions of funder)
• Project Managers (if eligible within terms and conditions of funder)
• Non-research staff charged as DI on more than one project will need to be supported by timesheets for some funders.
• Unsalaried roles, e.g., Honorary staff, visiting researchers, and Emeritus Professors. Whilst the salary of these staff cannot be included (unless UCL is to incur a cost), their time should be so that associated Indirect and Estates costs are calculated

DI non-staff costs

DI non-staff costs are project-specific running. They should be charged as actual expenditure incurred and be auditable. All required costs should be included in the application in as much detail as possible to avoid costs being disallowed post-award.

Examples include:

• Consumables
• Equipment purchases and associated costs
• Travel and subsistence
• Recruitment costs
• Biological Services
• Data storage costs/IT equipment (see: Data storage options)

DI research facilities

Departments should first establish the funder’s policy on including costs for research facilities in the application. Any questions on the funder's policy should be raised with Award Services as early as possible.

Any proposed facility usage should be discussed with the Facility Manager to understand capacity and any additional costs before finalising the project costing. 

If  FEC Charge-Out Facility access is required, the appropriate published rate (FEC or Charity, Industry) should be used. These can be selected in Worktribe from the dropdown list in the facility field.

Biological Services

To include biological services on a research proposal a quote from the UCL Biological Service Unit will need to be uploaded to the Worktribe project before submission for approval.

Directly Allocated (DA) costs

DA staff costs (PI/Co-I Time)

Under FEC, project costings should include an estimate of the time commitment for all investigators, irrespective of funding source with exception for those in receipt of a full-time, fully-reimbursed fellowship for the same period. Investigators should carefully consider all the direct time that can reasonably be attributed to a project with consideration given to both intellectual and practical input reasonably expected from each Investigator which will be largely dependent on the project nature and project team configuration.

DA estates costs

The estates rate is calculated as part of the annual Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) exercise. Rates are maintained within Worktribe and applied at the project level using the Project FTE.

Indirect costs

Indirect costs represent the costs of central and distributed services shared by other activities that are not project-specific, e.g. Library Services, Finance, Human Resources and ISD. 

The rate is calculated as part of the annual Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) exercise. Rates are maintained within Worktribe and applied at project level using the Project FTE.

Project partners/collaborators

All external collaborators and partners should be added to the Worktribe project at the application stage. This includes:

• Organisations providing an in-kind or cash contribution
• Where an external organisation is the lead applicant
• Where an external organisation is a co-applicant.

Multiple partners can be added to a project by selecting 'Add Partner' from within the Partners tab in Worktribe. 

Where UCL is the lead applicant an authorised costs report provided by the external partner will need to be added to the documents tab in Worktribe, followed by the costs being included under the relevant partner costs within the budget tab.

Checks will need to be conducted on all new partners as per UCL’s due diligence policy.

Setting up a new partner in Worktribe

If a partner is unavailable for selection, you should complete our Worktribe Organisation Request form to add them to the system. This will automatically trigger light touch due diligence checks by our Compliance and Assurance team. The partner will be available to select on Worktribe within 5 working days. 

For assistance with setting up a new partner on Worktribe, contact our Compliance and Assurance team at ris.duediligenceteam@ucl.ac.uk.

Using roles in Worktribe

Our Award Services Pre-Award team can advise you on when to use a role listed in Worktribe. A summary of roles is shown below:

• Lead: The lead organisation. To be used if UCL is not the lead for the project.
• Collaborator: A co-applicant organisation applying directly to a funder. This option is used to record other collaborators who applied for funding and will not receive that funding via UCL. This category can also be used when UCL is not the lead and we record full list of all other co-applicant organisations who will receive funding via the lead organisation.
• Sub-awardee: A co-applicant organisation applying through UCL where UCL is due to receive funding and pass it on to another co-applicant organisation.
• Partner: An organisation not in receipt of funding, but contributing in-kind, cash, or other. Recording an in-kind or cash contribution from a partner organisation is crucial for UCL to conduct appropriate due diligence and for Higher Education Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) return reporting.
• Other: Any other relationship not captured above.