sample research budget justification

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Budget Templates and Budget Justification Templates

The Sponsored Budget Template is an Excel-based tool, with Cornell-relevant equations already saved into over a dozen worksheets.

Worksheets include:

General Expense
Cost-Sharing
Salary 9 month
F&A Detail
Other typical budget categories

The "Quicktips" tab contains instructions.

Navigate among the worksheets using the arrows on the bottom left of your screen, or click on the tabs.

Download the Sponsored Budget Template (.xlsx) | Download the Sponsored Budget Justification Template (.docx)

The sample budget template was conceived and created by a team of department administrative managers and OSP staff with the goal of helping researchers and support staff develop sponsored project proposal budgets.

For more information about developing budgets see the Overview of Costs for Project Budget page.

Budget, Costs, and Rates

Overview of costs for project budgets (budget and costing guide), employee benefit (fringe) rates, escalation rates, facilities & administrative (f&a) rates, postdoctoral associate minimum salary, grad student tuition, health benefits, and stipend, nih salary cap, per diem rates for travel, weill cornell medicine f&a and benefits rates, proposing cost share.

Join us for a discussion on Cornell’s Research Administration Support System (RASS) new proposal budgeting functionality.

At this session attendees will learn about:

Streamlining proposal budgets with RASS
General updates and new RASS features
Resources available

Presenters:

Compliance protocols MUST be approved and linked in SeRA to a SPO project record prior to award acceptance.

Budgets and Budget Justifications

Main navigation.

Proposal budgets and budget justifications are the financial road maps of sponsored projects. When thoughtfully and strategically built they both help propel proposals to award and pave the way for effective post-award management. Below are templates and resource links to help you build successful budgets and budget justifications.

Questions? Concerns? Contact the Client Advocacy & Education team . We're here to help!

Detailed Budget Template Quick Start Guide
Detailed Budget Template Reference Guide
ORA-2204 Detailed Budget Recording - General Example (50 minutes)
Detailed Budgeting Webinar recording - NSF Example (50 minutes)
Each recording includes ORA detailed budget template capabilities, best practices for setup and use, and a test case demonstration.

Stanford Sponsored Project Budget Justification Template - Updated with FY25 Fringe Benefit Rates and FY25 and FY26 IDC Rates

Within the budget and budget justification template an annual cost-of-living increase of 3% is assumed for salaries and a 3% escalation rate is assumed for all other categories except where noted. These increases have been projected into all years of the budget template and are standard budgeting practice for Stanford sponsored projects. Users may amend the pre-programmed escalation rate(s) to coincide with current Stanford University Budget Office planning assumptions and/or to reflect recent historical growth in costs. Please note, the UBO's planning assumptions are used by the University Budget Office for planning purposes only and are subject to change. What may be appropriate at the university level may not be applicable at the school or department levels.

Links & Notes for Common Budget Categories

Personnel costs.

OBI Financial Reporting Payroll and Labor Management (PLM) Reports
Stanford Post doc Funding Guidelines
Graduate Student Assistantship Salary Rates and Tuition Allowances *

Stanford requires a commitment of effort on the part of the PI on all sponsored projects with the following exceptions. This requirement applies even if a sponsor does not require a commitment of effort on the part of the PI and/or does not allow the direct charging of PI salary. PI effort may be expended during the academic year, summer quarter only, or both.

Note: If a sponsor does not allow the direct charging of PI salary and the project does not meet one of the 3 below PI effort exceptions, PI effort must be cost shared.

Stanford tracks and manages effort primarily through direct salary charges to sponsored projects, cost sharing salary charges, or a combination of direct charging and cost sharing.

The requirement of PI effort does not extend to:

Equipment grants
Seed grants for students/postdocs where the faculty mentor is named as PI, dissertation support, training grants, or other awards intended as "student augmentation “
Limited-purpose awards characterized by Stanford as Other Sponsored Activities, including travel grants, conference support, etc.

See RPH 3.1 Preparation and Submission of Proposal Budgets for more information.

*Graduate Student Research Assistantships

Effective 9/1/23, the University contribution of tuition allowance granted to non-SoM funded Research Assistants increased to 55%, and 45% will be charged to the source funding on sponsored awards that pay Stanford's full facilities & administrative (F&A) cost rates.

For non-SoM funded Research Assistants on sponsored awards that pay an F&A rate less than Stanford's full facilities & administrative (F&A) cost rates the University contribution of tuition allowance remains 40%, and 60% will continue to be charged to the source funding.
For SoM funded Research Assistants the University contribution of tuition allowance remains 19%, and 81% will continue to be charged to the source funding.
See the Graduate Financial Support Salary & TAL Tables for more information.

Fringe Benefits

DoResearch- Stanford Rates
Faculty members do NOT accrue vacation leave or sick leave. Short absences for personal business, illness, jury duty, military duty, and similarly limited absences normally are with full salary. Under conditions specified in the Faculty Handbook , sabbatical leave may be granted by a school dean.
Let’s look at an example:
Dr. Cardinal, an ASR, has an annual salary of $120,000 and was budgeted for 100% effort on a federal award in FY24.
During FY24, Dr. Cardinal works 100% on the federal award as proposed and takes vacation for the half the month of April.
Review the below chart to see how Dr. Cardinal's salary, fringe benefits (28.4% for FY24), and vacation accrual (8.9% for FY24) will post to the federal award and the difference between the total incurred amount and that which was budgeted above.

Vacation Accruals and Credits on a Federal Sponsored Project

When the ASR takes vacation, the award to which their salary is being charged will NOT be charged for the commensurate amount of their salary and benefits. If the ASR takes all the vacation they accrue while working on a project, the vacation accrual charges and credits will net to zero.
IMPORTANT: In practical application, staff working on sponsored projects often take less vacation time than they accrue resulting in sponsored projects incurring the cost of vacation accruals without receiving all the offsetting credits. When this occurs, incurred personnel costs will exceed budgeted personnel amount. This will require investigators and award managers to either rebudget from other project budget categories, as available and allowed by the given award's terms and conditions, to cover the additional personnel costs or identify another funding source to support the project costs in excess of those awarded from the sponsor. If you are constructing or managing a project budget with a significant amount of personnel that accrue vacation, it is highly recommended that you discuss with your investigator the financial implications of vacation accrual costs and devise a proactive management plan.
For more information on which employees at Stanford accrue vacation and sick leave, review the Stanford Administrative Guide 2.1.6 .
Note: Capital equipment quotes often include maintenance service contract and/or extended warranty line items. Neither of these should be included in the budget line item for capital equipment. Maintenance service contracts covering the time the proposed project will be active are generally an allowable Other Direct Cost on sponsored projects. However, they must be budgeted separately from the capital equipment budget line item. They will incur IDC, and they should be explicitly spoken to in the budget justification. Extended warranties are nearly always unallowable on sponsored projects and thus should neither be budgeted for nor charged to sponsored projects. Extended warranties can be charged to most non-sponsored awards/PTAs.
Oracle Financials -> Stanford iProcurement - For equipment quotes
California affords partial exemption from sales and use taxes for research and development equipment purchases. Qualifying purchases must pay the remaining state tax and local and district taxes.
Fabricated Equipment , “a unique individual piece of equipment or scientific instrument built by Stanford personnel,” may be budgeted on sponsored projects (in Section C. Equipment) if it meets federal regulations and university policies. Fabricated Equipment is exempt from the MTDC Indirect Cost (F&A) Rate and subject to Stanford’s 2.6 Fabrication Property Management policy.
Oracle Financials -> Stanford iProcurement - For supply quotes
OBI Financial Reporting - For historical supply spending data
Egencia - Stanford Travel's Online Booking Tool
gsa.gov - Per Diem Rates
When budgeting lodging costs for conference attendance, we recommended, if you can identify from the conference website or other available information what the conference room rate has historically been or will be and if this rate is higher than the gsa.gov lodging rate for the conference location, to budget the conference room rate as opposed to the gsa.gov lodging rate and explain this in the associated budget justification.
Conversely, when budgeting lodging costs when it is known the lodging costs will be substantially less than the gsa.gov lodging rate for the given location(s), we recommend budgeting the known lower lodging costs and, again, explain this in the associated budget justification. This is a common occurrence when individuals travel and stay at another institution's or research facility's guesthouse/onsite accommodations.
Field Work allowability and budgeting instructions will be explicitly outlined in the FOA/PA. Read the FOA/PA carefully and follow the specific guidance provided.
“Meals may be allowable for subjects and patients under study, or where specifically approved as part of the project activity, provided that such charges are not duplicated in participants' per diem or subsistence allowances” – per NIH Grants Policy Statement. These costs should be budgeted with Patient Costs, when appropriate.
NOTE: Unless otherwise allowable and included on the sponsor-approved budget, Stanford travelers must use the per diem option for travel meals when the funding source is a sponsored award – per Stanford Fingate Travel Meals Policy.
Food costs for an activity that are not integral to the success of the Project Goals (SOW) are generally not allowable (i.e. lab meetings, coffee breaks, etc.).

Other Direct Costs

Animal care.

Animal purchases are considered technical supplies and full F&A costs will apply.
For federal sponsors and CIRM ET 58720 - INTERDEPT FED CIRM VSC SVC CHG is used. This ET does not include VSC F&A costs. The associated VSC F&A costs are automatically calculated by the Oracle Financials system and charged separately to ET 56920 VSC FED ANIMAL CARE CHARGE. Thus, for a federal project for which you are budgeting animal care costs, always use the federal VSC rates. Moreover, at minimum you will have two IDC rates on the sponsor budget forms and the ORA budget template: 1) the project's default IDC rate e.g. Organized Research - On Campus and 2) Animal Care IDC.
For non-federal (and other non-sponsored) awards ET 58710 - INTERDEPT NONFED VSC SVC CHG is used. For this ET the associated VSC F&A costs are automatically calculated by the VSC billing system and included in ET 58710 . Thus, for a non-federal project for which you are budgeting animal care costs always use the non-federal VSC rates. Moreover, be aware during post award when your non-federal project incurs animal care expenses the animal care total costs (direct and indirect) will be charged each month as a single direct cost line only and there will be NO animal care IDC expense lines on your non-federal/non-CIRM award's expense/general ledger reports.

Consultants

Name and title
Daily salary rate
Number of days engaged
Other expenses (e.g., travel)
Note: The NIH allows individuals to be listed in the role of Other Significant Contributor who will “contribute to the scientific development or execution of the project, but are not committing any specified measurable effort (i.e., person months) to the project. These individuals are typically presented at "effort of zero person months" or "as needed." Individuals with measurable effort may not be listed as Other Significant Contributors (OSCs). Consultants should be included if they meet this definition. OSCs are not considered senior/key personnel , but you must include biosketches for OSCs.

Data Management & Sharing Plan

Most federal funding agencies now require a Data Management & Sharing Plan. This plan requests applicants planning to generate scientific data to document how the scientific data will be managed and shared.
NIH Data Management & Sharing guidance - RMG

Participant Support Costs

Participant support costs (PSC) are defined in the Uniform Guidance as direct costs for items such as stipends or subsistence allowances, travel allowances, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with conferences or training projects. PSC is excluded from the MTDC base.
Federal Awards: refer to the specific program announcement to which you are applying, and as needed, contact the sponsor, to determine if you are allowed to budget for PSC.
Non-federal Awards: do NOT propose PSC on non-federal sponsored projects unless required by the sponsor. Categorize such costs using the expenditure types for travel, stipend, etc.
Additional PSC Budgeting and Charging Considerations

Patient Care

If Patient Care is to be included in your budget, ensure you seek clarification from your PI on if these are "research" patient care costs or "usual/standard" patient care costs. The costs of routine or ancillary services provided by hospitals to individuals participating in a research program can be categorized as "research patient care" costs and are appropriate to include in your proposal budget. Expenses for routine services or items that would have normally occurred without the existence of this research or study are considered "usual patient care" and are not appropriate to include in your proposal budget.
RMG has constructed a Budgeting Patient Care worksheet to aid you in this determination and calculation for proposal budgets. Contact your RMG representative for further information.
If you are budgeting Patient Care costs, where will the activities take place? If services are at CTRU, utilize the budgeting workbook. CTRU services are always off-campus, and the budget template will calculate this. A second rate schedule should be used in the PDRF.

Miscellaneous Examples of “Other Direct Costs”

Honoraria for non-employees
Hospital employee salaries
Maintenance contracts, warranties, training costs, etc. for equipment. (Review Accounting Manual 2.2 for a breakdown of costs that can be subsumed with cost of the equipment and costs that should be categorized separately as “Other Direct Costs.”
Postage (typical F&A-type costs but appropriate as a direct cost when it specifically benefits the aims of the project)
Publication costs