4.6 Budget Justification

Revised 4/11/00

The budget justification is an important section in any proposal. It should be used to state why an item costs what it does, and to indicate how each item relates to the research plan. The information should be sufficiently detailed to address all sponsor concerns with respect to cost and need. In general, explanations should be more detailed for competing than for non-competing applications. In some instances (e.g., NIH SNAP applications), non-competing proposals will not request any detailed budgetary information. While your Sponsored Project Administrators can provide you with advice as to the extent that you should justify various items, it is ultimately the responsibility of the Principal Investigator (except with respect to statements bearing on University policy). Common sponsor requests include (but not limited to):

• How project salary amount is calculated, including percent of effort and total salary base.
• How fringe benefits were calculated
• Explain what the travel is for and break it into number of persons traveling, airfare, lodging, per diem, etc.
• How expenses were derived for supplies, analyses and/or equipment (i.e., from past experience, quotes, etc.).
• How the F&A rate was calculated
• Justification of any restricted items (unallowable costs), specifying why they are unique to the particular project.

Some investigators mention in the budget justification that additional effort not listed in the budget will be provided. In other cases, they indicate that the funds requested in other budgetary categories are insufficient for the proposed research and will be supplemented from other sources. This is considered a cost-sharing commitment. In general the University recommends that PI's only cost share if it is required by the sponsor. Please refer to Section 4.5 Cost Sharing for more on this topic.