Policy on Funding Indirect Costs
Biology is Open Technology for Inspiring Civilization, Inc. provides funding of indirect costs for grants and contracts at a rate of 10% of the direct costs of the awarded grant or contract. This rate is applied uniformly to all grant or contract recipients. All funding requests to the Organization should include a budget that identifies direct costs (defined below) for a specified project, to which the Organization's 10% indirect cost rate would then be applied. This policy will be made available on the Organization's website.
Definitions
Direct Costs are the portion of a grant intended to fund project activity costs, such as allocable salaries for project staff based on effort and materials required for the project.
Indirect Costs are costs for activities or services that support the organization as a whole rather than a specified project, including administrative and operations costs. Grantees are not required to quantify these indirect costs. Rather, the Organization's indirect cost rate of 10% is applied to Direct Costs to make up the total project budget.
Examples of Direct and Indirect Costs
The following examples highlight common direct and indirect costs that could be included in a funded project budget, though are not intended to be an exhaustive list of such allowable costs.
Representative Direct Costs
- Allocable personnel costs (wages and benefits) of staff working on funded project, based on project effort
- Allocable portion of graduate student stipend or tuition costs for students conducting work on the funded project, based on project effort (not eligible for indirect cost recovery)
- Supplies and materials used for the funded project, including costs for internal resources or services (e.g., core facility services) charged at the same rate applicable to the grantee's own internal use of such resources or services
- Equipment purchased for use on the funded project
- Travel expenses directly related to the funded project
- Meetings and conferences associated with the funded project
- Vendor or contractor fees or sub‑grants made to other organizations to directly support work on the funded project
Representative Indirect Costs
The following items should not be included as Direct Costs in the project budget but are intended to be covered through indirect cost recovery. Please note that the Organization's 10% Indirect Cost rate may not be applied to the amount of any graduate student tuition or stipend costs included in the project's Direct Costs.
- Personnel costs (wages and benefits) of administrative, operations and tech transfer staff
- Rent and occupancy costs for project facilities (including office space) occupied by project team, administrative and related operational functions
- Utilities, telephone and internet costs utilized by administrative and operational functions
Effective: January 20, 2026