ANU Policy Library - Procedure - Costing and Pricing of Externally Funded Research and Development Activities

Procedure: Costing and Pricing of Externally Funded Research and Development Activities

Purpose

To outline the procedure for costing and pricing externally funded research and development activities.

Procedure

All Externally Funded Research Activities must accurately calculate the Project Cost and Project Price taking into account and documenting the Direct and Indirect costs, any University In-kind Contributions or Cash Co-Contributions including those specified in the Strategic Research Funding Guidelines, and any Research Cross Subsidy.
All reasonable attempts should be made to identify as many Direct Costs as possible to avoid project overspend.
All reasonable attempts should be made to identify as many Indirect Costs as possible to ensure that the operations of the University are sustainably funded.
Any cross-subsidy of direct or indirect costs must be approved by relevant budget delegates in all cases, at the time of proposal submission (as per the Policy).
The amount of Indirect Cost and Margin recovered will be allocated according to the distributions outlined in the Policy.
The Project Cost Calculator, the Indirect Distribution Calculator, and the Margin Distribution Calculator will be updated from time to time as endorsed by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation).
The Research Services team will provide guidelines, and advice on costing and pricing procedures of major research funders, development tools and systems to support effective costing and pricing.

Note: definitions of terms used in this procedure can be found in the Policy – Indirect Costs of Research and Consultancies.

Information	Printable version (PDF)
Title	Costing and Pricing of Externally Funded Research and Development Activities
Document Type	Procedure
Document Number	ANUP_010411
Version
Purpose	To outline the procedure for calculating the Full Costs and appropriate Market Price of externally funded Research Projects, University Consultancies and Commercial Services.
Audience	Staff-Academic-Research
Category	Administrative
Topic/ SubTopic	Research - Grants & Consultancies

Effective Date	25 Nov 2025
Next Review Date	25 Nov 2030

Responsible Officer:	Chief, Research and Innovation services
Approved By:	Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation)
Contact Area	Office of Research and Innovation Services
Authority:	Australian National University Act 1991 Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 Australian National University (ANU Foundation) Statute 2018
Delegations	327, 328, 329
Information generated and received by ANU staff in the course of conducting business on behalf of ANU is a record and should be captured by an authorised recordkeeping system. To learn more about University records and recordkeeping practice at ANU, see ANU recordkeeping and Policy: Records and archives management.