Policy Manual

Facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, formerly known as indirect costs, are real costs to the University that cannot be directly identified with and charged to a specific project. F&A costs include the costs of operating and maintaining buildings and grounds, equipment, and libraries, as well as administrative costs at the institutional, collegiate, and departmental levels. Since it is not practical to identify the F&A costs applicable to each specific project, these costs are grouped into pools and distributed to those activities of the University such as instruction and research in accordance with the requirements specified by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2 CFR 200.414. The end product of this cost distribution process is an F&A rate or series of F&A rates approved by the federal government as the basis for determining the amount of F&A costs chargeable to individual grant and contract awards. These costs are generally charged to all external grants and contracts unless the sponsor's written policy prohibits or limits such reimbursement. Additional information regarding charging F&A costs to grants and contracts is available at https://dsp.research.uiowa.edu/facilities-administrative-fa-costs.