Your budget tells reviewers whether you understand the real cost of your work. An under-budgeted proposal looks naive. An over-budgeted one looks wasteful. The budget justification — a narrative companion to the numbers — is where you prove your budget is right.
Personnel costs: • List every person by name (or TBD for future hires), role, effort percentage, and annual salary. • Justify why each person's effort percentage matches the work described in the research plan. • Include fringe benefits as a separate line, using your institution's negotiated rate.
Direct costs: • Equipment: Justify each item above the threshold (typically $5,000). Explain why existing institutional equipment is insufficient. • Supplies: Break down by category (reagents, computing, fabrication materials). Avoid lump sums. • Travel: Justify each trip — conference names, purpose, number of attendees from your team. • Subcontracts: Include a budget and justification from each subcontractor. Explain why the work can't be done in-house. • Consultant costs: Justify daily rates by reference to market rates.
Indirect costs (F&A): • Use your institution's negotiated indirect cost rate. Never negotiate this down without understanding the institutional impact. • If your rate is high, acknowledge it and explain the value of your institutional infrastructure.
Common budget mistakes: • Forgetting inflation — multi-year budgets must account for salary escalation (typically 3–5% annually). • Not justifying cost-sharing if your institution requires it. • Lump sums without itemization — reviewers will assume the worst. • Requesting equipment that should be available at a research institution.