Cost Sharing or Matching (Section 200.29) means the portion of project costs not paid by Federal funds (unless otherwise authorized by Federal statute). All cost sharing must be tracked and maintained in a separate account.
Voluntary Cost Sharing (Section 200.99) is specifically pledged on a voluntary basis in the proposal’s budget (or budget justification) or the Federal award (narrative) on the part of the non-Federal entity and becomes a binding requirement of the Federal award.
Section 200.306 clarifies policy on voluntary committed cost sharing, or matching, to ensure that cost sharing is only solicited for research proposals when required by regulation and is transparent in the notice of funding opportunity. Voluntary committed cost sharing is not expected under Federal research proposals and cannot be used as a factor during the merit review of applications or proposals. Only mandatory cost sharing or cost sharing included in the project budget must be included in the organized research base for computing the F&A cost rate.
Shared costs, matching funds, and contributions must meet certain criteria to be accepted as cost sharing. In particular, salary costs above a Federal awarding agency’s cap are not mandatory cost-share or match.
Impact at UMBC:
- UMBC’s Cost Sharing Policy is consistent with these requirements.
- Research proposals for federal grants must only include cost sharing when it is required by the solicitation.
- Any funded award with cost sharing is required to maintain a separate PS project/fund 1114 for costs to be counted as cost sharing.