Part IV - Charge-out rates

Section E: Estate charges

Chapter E.3 Applying the £/FTE rate

1. The non-laboratory estates charge should be applied to the academic and research staff FTEs working in non-laboratory (social sciences, mathematics and humanities) departments and which are estimated for a research project. The laboratory estates charge should be applied to the academic and research staff FTEs working in laboratory departments and which are estimated for a research project.
2. They should also be applied to the FTE of PGR students, where they are formally recognised as part of the research team by the sponsor (the project studentships) if the institution wishes to include their costs in the project cost totals.
3. When an estates charge is applied to a PGR FTE it should be weighted to reflect the PGR weightings built into the calculation above. (So a PGR student in a non-laboratory department would have been weighted at 0.5 in the calculation and academic staff remaining unweighted at 1.0. Therefore, the resulting charge of £x/FTE would then be multiplied by 1.0 for academic staff and 0.5 for PGR students when applied to the FTEs charged against a project or individual studentship.)
4. These estates charges would be applied during the project costing (estimating) process carried out pre-application. They should then be recorded against each project during its life. These costs would be charged to sponsors on cost-based price grants and contracts.
5. No updating for ‘actual’ (estates use, costs or rates) need be recorded during the project life – they would not be recognised for cost-based pricing for PF sponsors.
6. However, when cost-based pricing, estates costs charged to a project should be reviewed and updated (for latest estimates) if there is a substantial change to the programme of work.
7. A record of actual use of space by each project is not required. However, appropriate records of overall usage by activity should be kept to provide a robust audit trail supporting the annual calculation of the estates charges.
8. There may be an over or under-recovery of estates costs in any one year. This should not be taken into account in the calculation of the estates charge or indirect cost rate based on that year’s figures, nor in the calculation of any subsequent year’s estates charges.
9. Initially based on a prior year’s cost totals, estates charges should be indexed to current price levels.   These should be indexed (by two years’ price levels) to provide a reasonable estimate of first year (‘base year’) costs for research projects. Further indexing of these base year costs should then be done throughout the life of the project.
10. When applying an estates charge to academic or research staff time on a project:
    • on any project where a laboratory, major facility or equipment is in use, and their use is significant, then the laboratory estates charge should be applied;
    • if an academic in a laboratory department is working on a desk-based project, then the non-laboratory estates charge, not the laboratory estates charge, should be applied.
    • if all of the work is taking place off-campus, then no estates charge should be applied. (A direct cost may or may not be charged to the institution, and therefore to the project, from the off-campus facilities provider);
    • it is good practice for the charges to reflect the location where each member of staff is working. However, the same laboratory (or non-laboratory) estates charge could be applied to all staff on a project designated as ‘laboratory’ (or not), irrespective of the time each individual actually spent in the laboratory or in their office on that project. Where staff are based in different departments and the institution has calculated different department estates charges for each, then the charge calculated for their department should be applied;
    • on collaborative projects between institutions, the estates rates charged by staff should reflect the costs relevant to the location of the work being done, irrrespective of which institution is the lead institution. However, an estates charge could be used for all staff that represents the location where the majority of the work is being carried out. If the work is taking place equally across the institutions then each institution’s own rate would be applied.
    • on collaborative projects between institutions, or where there is visiting academic on a project, and work is based at the collaborating institution, not the lead institution, estates costs might be charged from the collaborator to the lead institution. If so:
      • the estates rate applied to the collaborator to lead institution‘s FTEs on the project should reflect the costs being recharged, and
      • the visiting staff FTEs should not be included in the denominator when calculating the lead institution‘s estates rates.

      where costs are not being recharged from the collaborating institution to the lead institution, next time the rates are calculated by the lead institution, the FTEs of the visiting staff would be included in the denominator;

    • where a research fellow or RA is working on the project, but their time has already been wholly (100%) included in another single fellowship or research project (from the research councils, charities or OGDs), then no time will have been allocated to the new project. No estates charge will then be applied in respect of that researcher (their ‘share of estates costs’ would have been included on the initial fellowship or research project). This is irrespective of how the initial fellowship or research project was funded;
    • an estates charge should be made for the time of staff working in a laboratory facility owned by the university, irrespective of the funding of that facility.