RB&I Finance - FEC Schedule


These guidelines are aimed at helping in the preparation of Research Council application forms.

Aberystwyth University FEC 2023 V1.2 in Windows Excel Format

Guidelines

  • Download the excel spreadsheet to your hard drive and save the file with a suitable name/reference corresponding to your application.
  • The costing sheet must be completed and forwarded (electronically) to the Research Grants Section in conjunction with a completed RG1 (pink) form (hard copy) before any application is submitted through the JeS system to the Research Councils.
  • Applicants must complete all relevant sections shaded yellow of this costing schedule. The worksheet is password protected and there is no access to non-yellow shaded cells.
  • Input the “Start Date” and “End Date” of the project for every application (this is vital to calculating the default salary and estates and indirect costs).
  • The correct department option must be chosen as laboratory and classroom based departments have different estates rates.
  • Select the correct type of sponsor from the “Sponsor” Drop-down menu. All the relevant boxes must be completed for every type of sponsor as the Full Economic Cost remains constant; it is the “Contract Price” that differs between types of sponsor.
  • All relevant “Hours” cells must be completed (this is vital to calculating the default salary and estates and indirect costs).
  • Always include the Principal investigator’s hours and every Co-investigator’s hours.
  • Only include non-establishment staff under Direct Staff costs (no pooled technicians, secretarial and computer support staff) unless they are externally funded.
  • At present there are no Other Directly Allocated Costs at Aberystwyth University (pooled staff, Usage costs of research facilities and central & distributed computing costs are covered by the estates and indirect costs).
  • Include items of equipment dedicated to the research project and costing £3,000 or more (including VAT), including computers and laboratory/workshop equipment. Items costing under £3,000 should normally be considered as consumables.
  • When dealing with equipment over £50k, leave the sum up to £50k in the standard equipment and put the balance over £50k in exceptional items.
  • The Research Councils will not fund any post for more than 100% at any one time (including and especially investigators). 100% equates to 1650 hours per annum (e.g. a maximum of 4950 hours over 3 years).
  • Realistic estimates of investigators time must be made otherwise the application could be jeopardised.
  • When dealing with manual adjustments please contact the Research Grants and Contracts Section for salary costs regarding non-standard increment dates (this relates to the continuation of current staff where the increment date will not be the anniversary of the grant). When inputting agreed salary costs for visiting fellows, remember to include appropriate on-costs.
  • Travel & subsistence costs can be calculated using this sheet, if costs have been calculated manually – input the total figure under “Fares”.
  • Input the total costs of “Consumables” in the appropriate cells.
  • The Research Councils have not announced the format of their FEC application forms – this is Aberystwyth University’s perception of what it might look like (a re-design may be necessary).