Request Cost Sharing

Requesting Cost Sharing in the School of Physical Sciences

Guidelines

The School of Physical Sciences (SoPS), via the Dean’s Office, supports Principal Investigators (PIs) in their pursuit of extramural awards/sponsored projects. We have set out the following guidelines for how PIs can request cost sharing; the guidelines were established to provide a unified approach and to set parameters to ensure resources are strategically and appropriately allocated. 

There are two types of cost sharing, and the Dean’s Office takes consideration of these differently. 

  1. Mandatory Cost Sharing – When a sponsor requires financial support for the project from the awarded institution as a condition of the award. E.g., from the Department of Energy-Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE), “The cost share must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.”

  2. Voluntary Cost Sharing – When the proposing institution volunteers and commits to bear a specific portion of the costs of the project when it is not required.

    Further explanation: There are two different types of voluntary cost sharing, uncommitted and committed. Uncommitted is when UCI provides institutional support that is not quantified in the proposal or detailed in the budget and budget justification, e.g., NSF’s “Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited.” Documentation is collected internally and not included in KR/SPA review for agency auditing. Committed cases are rare and occurs for some foundations, e.g., tuition/fees for Keck Foundation.

     

The Dean’s Office will consider requests for Mandatory Cost Sharing and Voluntary Cost Sharing, with the latter for exceptional circumstances only to cover necessary additional costs not covered by the award, such as center management, workforce development, DEI initiatives, shared use facility/equipment, and a strategic research direction. (Note: administrative support with a defined role for the specific project should be budgeted into the proposal as direct costs). When appropriate, we expect the PI to work with other schools/units to contribute to the cost sharing.

How to Request Cost Sharing

If a PI would like to request cost sharing from the Dean’s Office, please send a request email to the Associate Dean for Research. If it is for a graduate student training grant, please send the email to the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies. with the following subject line “PI name: Cost Share Request” and information:

  1. Proposal Information: 
    1. Names of PI and lead faculty (include affiliation if outside of SoPS)
    2. Title of proposal
    3. Sponsor and title/call of the program
    4. Due date to agency 
  2. Type of Cost Sharing: State if the request is for Mandatory Cost Sharing or Voluntary Cost Sharing. If it is Mandatory Cost Sharing, please provide the cost sharing language from the call.
  3. Budget: Provide an annual budget, for the term of the project, of the SoPS requested costs. If applicable, provide a breakdown of funds contributed by other sources (e.g., other Schools, ORUs, third-party entities). Additional notes:
    1. The Dean’s Office will automatically request cost match from the VCR, but VCR support for voluntary cost sharing is not guaranteed. For graduate student training grants, please reach out to Graduate Division to secure the “Matching 25% of Student Support of Grant Expenditures.”
    2. Funds committed by SoPS can only be used to support SoPS activities and personnel.
    3. For Mandatory Cost Sharing, it is expected that a reasonable percentage of PI/faculty academic salary is used as in-kind support.
  4. Justification: Provide a justification for the budget request and how these funds will enable the success of the project. Explain any additional support needed that isn’t quantified in the budget (e.g., space, staff time, IT support). If Voluntary Cost Sharing, provide an explanation of why these costs cannot be budgeted into the grant.