Indirect Cost Waivers/Reductions are required when, for any reason other than sponsor requirements, a Principal Investigator (PI) would like to request less than full indirect costs in the budget. See CU Boulder’s Waivers and Reductions Policy Statement for details. When the sponsor is a U.S. government entity, non-profit organization, or a for profit entity flowing through U.S. government agency funds and the cap on Indirect Costs is published, no Waiver/Reduction request is necessary. Instead, the IDC Addendum will be used to document the situation and the approval from the head of the CU Boulder unit and ADR acknowledging the loss of indirect costs (F&A) for the unit.
Indirect Cost Waivers are very rarely granted given the importance of indirect costs to CU Boulder’s overall operations. The following is a list of types of sponsors for which Waiver/Reduction requests are not eligible for consideration:
- Proposals to/projects with Federal sponsors (Direct or Prime Sponsor)
- Proposals to/projects with an office within the Colorado State Government
- Proposals to/projects with a foreign entity
- Outgoing subawards which are the result of incoming transfers
In rare cases, waiver/reduction requests for proposals to/projects with industry or corporate sponsors may be granted. The standard process for a waiver/reduction request is to be followed.
For details on the treatment of indirect costs (F&A) on the transfer of existing subawards, see IDC on the Transfer of Existing Subawards Procedural Statement.
Indirect Cost Waiver/Reduction requests to non-Federal, non-corporate entities will be considered only if submitted to your unit’s OCG Proposal Analyst a minimum of 10 business days ahead of the published submission deadline.
Your Proposal Analyst can help answer any questions you may have on this topic.