You must use an itemized budget when requesting more than $250,000 direct costs per year. You must complete a separate detailed budget for each year of support requested. The form will generate a cumulative budget for the total project period.

Note, if you are requesting >$500,000, you must get permission and add that information to the budget justification. 

The R&R Budget form is used for detailed budgets. It includes 3 separate data entry screens: (1) Sections A and B; (2) Sections C through E; and (3) Sections F through K.

• Itemized Budget - Salaries
• Personnel: Stanford employees only: Faculty (academic vs. summer) Institutional Base Salary (optional), Research Scientists (postdocs and beyond), Graduate Students, Other Staff
• NIH will request more detail in Budget Justification
• Calculate effort in Person Months (PM), not percentage of effort: 

PM = % Effort x Months (e.g.: 12 months x 50% effort = 6 PM)

Calendar = 12   |   Academic= 9   |   Summer = 3

As a rule of thumb for calculating costs, figure salaries will be 60 to 80 percent of the total request. Detail for budget should be presented in the budge justification.

• Section C Equipment: List each item of equipment separately and justify each in the budget justification section. Allowable items ordinarily will be limited to research equipment and apparatus not already available for the conduct of the work. General-purpose equipment, such as a personal computer, is not eligible for support unless primarily or exclusively used in the actual conduct of scientific research.
• Section D Travel: enter amount of travel cost, list domestic  and international travel   separately
• Section E Participant/Trainee Support Cost: only use if applicable to your application. (typically not used on R01’s)

• Section F. Other Direct Costs: Itemize supplies, publication costs, consultants, ADP/computer services, consortium costs, equipment or facility rental/user fees, alterations & renovations, patient care costs & tuition remission
• Section G Total Direct Cost: This will total (A – F) automatically
• Section H Indirect Cost:

• Indirect cost type: enter MTDC (Modified Total Direct Costs)

• Indirect cost rate: enter Stanford’s current federally negotiated

• Indirect cost rate:  enter MTDC base

• Funds Requested:  enter indirect dollars being requested

• Section I Total Costs
• Section J Fee - Generally, a fee is not allowed on a grant or cooperative agreement

 Attach PDF of the budget justification

• Provides additional information in each budget category
• Single justification includes all budget years (one file)
• List the names, role (e.g. Postdoc or Graduate Student), associated months, salary and fringe benefits for all Postdoc & Graduate Students included in “B. Other Personnel”
• Include a justification for: any significant increases or decreases from the initial year budget. more than a standard escalation from the initial to the future year(s) of support
• Subawards include a separate budget and justification
• One justification for the entire proposal
• Administrative salaries must be justified

Use the budget justification to provide the additional information requested in each budget category identified above and any other information the applicant wishes to submit to support the budget request. The following budget categories must be justified, where applicable: administrative salaries,equipment, travel, participant/trainee support and other direct cost categories.

Use this section to also list the names, role (e.g. Postdoc or Graduate Student), associated months, salary and fringe benefits for all Postdoctoral Associates and Graduate Students included in Budget Section B. Other Personnel.

Include a justification for any significant increases or decreases from the initial year budget. Also, justify budgets with more than a standard escalation from the initial to the future year(s) of support.

If the application includes a subaward/consortium budget, a separate budget justification is submitted for that budget.

Write a budget justification for each administrator or clerical staff member included in the proposal budget. The purpose of the justification is to increase the likelihood that the sponsor will award the administrative cost and to ensure adequate funding.

An adequate budget justification helps administrators, auditors, and sponsoring agencies to easily understand the nature of the costs and why they are allowable under the regulations. 

The justification should include the following.

• A description of the administrator’s role tailored to sponsor specific requirements and the specific project or activity
• Why the activity qualifies as integral to the project
• How the administrator’s effort relates to and benefits the project
• The level of effort expressed as a percentage FTE or person months per sponsor instructions
• The time period(s) in which the person will be working
• Any other information that will aid the sponsor in evaluating and funding the proposed salary
• In addition, you must establish that the project being proposed meets the Stanford policy requirement for integral costs

NOTE: Although NIH modular grants or similar grant instruments do not require line-item justifications, the personnel, including administrative salaries, do need to be described in a modular budget justification. 

Sample Budget Justification

The PI has included effort for administrative salary that is integral to the project, and not for general support of the academic activities of the faculty or department.  Effort charged to this project can be specifically identified to the project.

Then you proceed to describe how the administrative role is integral to the project.....

Itemized Budget – Grad Students

• Graduate Student Compensation Policy-Check the GFS Policy Manual

• Ties compensation on research grants to the zero level NRSA  postdoc stipend in effect at the time of award

• Compensation continues to include “salary or wages, fringe benefits and tuition remission”
• No adjustments will be made to non-competing award levels or future years
• Grantees may re-budget to accommodate the higher level but to no more than what a first year postdoc receives in their department.

Check the Postdoc Salary Guidelines

Itemized Budget - Salary Cap

Make sure the PI's salary takes into account the mandatory cap, which changes every fiscal year. Check with your business office, the NIH Guide, or the NIH Salary Cap Summary, for the latest figure.

The salary cap  is tied to Level II of the Federal Executive Pay scale.This cap remains until more guidance is announced by NIH. For detailed information on applying the salary cap click here.

In preparing an NIH proposal budget, if a key personnel to be paid on the project earns an annual salary above the PHS cap, keep the following general principles in mind:

• The salary cap applies to the total institutional salary paid to the individual. If a faculty member earning more than the cap will charge 50% of her salary to a project, the salary charge is 50% of the cap amount - not the full salary.
• An individual's total Stanford salary is defined as the pay which an individual receives upon which benefits are calculated. In the School of Medicine, for example, this includes base pay and clinical components. Sabbatical pay, however, is not included as part of base salary. Pay would also include administrative supplements, which incur benefits.
• Salary dollars above a salary cap level are unallowable costs, but they must be tracked and accounted for as part of Stanford's Organized Research Base. We accomplish this by using a special Expenditure Type 51190, "Regular Benefits Eligible (RBE) Unallowed Salary over a Cap," on the Oracle Labor Distribution Labor Schedule, which allocates salary costs.
• NIH will fund the salary cap at the level in effect at the time of the competitive award. If the salary cap is increased during the period of that award, you will normally be able to use rebudgeting authority to pay the salary to the higher level. NIH, however, will not award any additional funds for this purpose.

Data entry is not allowed or required, to complete the Cumulative Budget section.this is a summary screen. All values on this form are calculated automatically; they are the summations of the amounts entered under Sections A through K for each of the individual budget periods.  

If you will issue a subaward, extract the R&R (Research & Research Related) Subaward Budget Attachment from the Subaward form, save it as a PDF,  and send the file to each subrecipient/consortium for completion.

Give the subrecipient(s) enough time to complete their budgeting and approval process.

The subrecipient(s) fills out the budget and sends it back to Stanford in time for review and submission by the 5-day Stanford proposal deadline. Attach the returned Subaward budget form(s) on the Subaward form.