As an authorized auxiliary of Cal Poly Humboldt (Humboldt), one of the responsibilities of the Sponsored Programs Foundation (SPF), is to manage grants and contracts awarded by various Federal agencies, units of state and local governments, and private foundations and corporations to support research and educational programs conducted by Humboldt faculty and administration.

The purpose of this policy is to provide direction for recovery of all program costs of grants by requiring that facilities and administrative (“F&A”) costs are included in the proposed budgets.

SPF has a multi-year Facilities and Administrative (F&A/Indirect Cost) rate agreement with the federal government. This agreement specifies the F&A cost rates to be applied to awards from both federal and non-federal sponsors. The agreement is dated January 30, 2012, and is effective from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2016.

Exceptions to these rates occur when a funding agency places a cap on the F&A rate. In this case, the Office of Research, Economics and Community Development (ORECD) must have written guidelines from the funding agency stating that there is a limit on F&A costs.

Any variation from the rates described above must be approved by the Dean of the College and the Executive Director of SPF supporting the Principal Investigator’s proposal. Please note that Principal Investigators are not authorized to negotiate F&A with sponsors.