Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Costs and Fringe Benefit Rates

Indirect costs are now more commonly called Facilities and Administrative costs (F&A). These costs support research that cannot be specifically quantified for your research or project alone. Examples are the maintenance and operations of the buildings and space within which research or projects are conducted, the interest and depreciation on the costs of construction, and certain administrative costs. The institution calculates indirect costs and negotiates the rate with a federal agency. CHOP negotiates our F&A rate with the Department of Health and Human Services annually.  Unless a sponsor has a different published F&A rate, the current federally negotiated rate should be used on all grant submissions. Please see our Overhead and Fringe Benefit Rates below for the current rates.

CHOP policy requires the full recovery of indirect (F&A) costs. When a sponsor has a published policy that limits the F&A that may be charged, CHOP accepts the published rate. In rare circumstances, CHOP will consider a request to reduce or waive F&A. Such requests should be forwarded to the Director, Post-Award Research Administration and Research Portfolio Management for review and consideration.

CHOP recognizes that sponsors have a finite availability of fiscal funding and thus wanting to reduce or waive CHOP's F&A rate may appear expedient. However, this overlooks that F&A cost are real expenses to CHOP.

Information for collaborating institutions on Hospital fringe benefit and Facilities and Administrative (F&A) rates is available below.

View the CHOP Rate Agreement.