Overview
A budget is a second description of your project. If the narrative promises a multi-site trial but the budget has no travel or site costs, reviewers notice. If a postdoc is budgeted at full effort but appears in only one task, they notice that too. The budget justification (NSF and NIH), justification of resources (UKRI) or resources section (Horizon Europe) is where you explain each cost and its link to the work.
We start from your work plan and build a cost structure by category and year: personnel and effort, fringe benefits, equipment, travel, materials and supplies, participant or patient costs, publication and data costs, subcontracts or partner costs, and other direct costs. We then draft the justification line by line, with quantities and the reasoning behind them, so a reader can reproduce the number.
Indirect costs — also called facilities and administrative (F&A) costs or overheads — follow rules set by each funder and institution. US federal awards use the institution's negotiated rate, or a de minimis rate for eligible organizations without one. ERC and Horizon Europe apply a flat 25 percent to eligible direct costs in standard actions, and UKRI uses full economic costing. We explain these conventions, but your research office holds the authoritative rates and signs off the final budget.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Investigators preparing their first budget without dedicated research finance support
- Applicants whose previous reviews flagged costs as unjustified or excessive
- Nonprofits preparing a foundation budget and narrative that includes overhead
- Horizon Europe partners aligning their costs with their work package tasks
- Research administrators who want a clearer justification template for their investigators
Common problems we help with
- You do not know how to express personnel effort in person-months or percentages
- The budget and the narrative describe different activities
- You are unsure which costs are direct, which are indirect and which are not allowable
- Equipment requests look expensive and you cannot explain why existing facilities are insufficient
- Year-by-year costs are identical with no inflation or phasing
- The justification is a list of amounts with no reasoning
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Mapping of work plan activities to budget categories and years
- Personnel effort planning by role and year, with rationale linked to tasks
- Guidance on direct and indirect costs, cost sharing and in-kind contributions for your funder type
- Justification text for each line: purpose, quantity, unit basis and link to aims or work packages
- Equipment justification, including why existing resources are insufficient
- Participant incentive, travel, publication, open access and data management costs
- Subaward, subcontract or partner cost narratives
- Consistency check between budget, justification, work plan and personnel section
Not included
- Setting or certifying institutional rates such as salary, fringe or indirect cost rates — these come from your research office
- Completing official budget forms in submission systems on your behalf
- Inflating costs, or presenting unallowable costs as allowable
- Promising that a funder will accept every line as proposed
What you receive
- Budget structure worksheet
- A spreadsheet linking each cost to a task or work package, by category and year, ready for your research office to apply official rates.
- Budget justification draft
- Line-by-line narrative in the funder's order and style, with quantities and reasoning.
- Consistency notes
- A list of mismatches between the budget and the narrative, timeline or personnel section, with suggested fixes.
- Questions for your research office
- Specific items to confirm, such as allowability, rates, cost sharing or equipment thresholds.
How it works
Rules and scope
We read the funder's cost rules and any caps, and agree what you need: structure, justification or both.
Activity-to-cost mapping
Using your work plan, we list the resources each activity needs and when.
Draft budget structure
We build a worksheet by category and year with placeholder or indicative rates for your office to confirm.
Write the justification
We draft the narrative line by line and check it against the rest of the proposal.
Reconcile and finalize
After your research office applies official figures, we update the justification so text and numbers match.
Budget conventions we explain and apply
- Direct costs
- Costs attributable to the project: personnel, fringe benefits, equipment, travel, materials, participant costs, services and subawards.
- Indirect costs (F&A, overheads)
- Shared institutional costs recovered through a rate. US federal awards use negotiated rates or, where eligible, a de minimis rate of up to 15 percent of modified total direct costs under 2 CFR 200.414.
- EU flat rates
- ERC grants and standard Horizon Europe actions add 25 percent of eligible direct costs for indirect costs; lump sum calls fix the amount per work package in advance.
- Full economic costing
- UK research councils generally fund a percentage of the full economic cost calculated by the institution; your office produces the figures.
- Person-months and effort
- Expressing staff time consistently across budget, personnel section and work plan.
- Modular and detailed budgets
- Some NIH applications use modular budgets in fixed increments with a shorter justification; others require detailed budgets. We follow the format your opportunity specifies.
A justification reviewers can check
Every line should answer three questions: what is it, why does the project need it, and how was the amount calculated. 'Travel' is not a justification; 'two researchers attending one international conference in Year 3 to present Aim 2 results, based on the institution's standard travel estimate' is. Quantities and units let reviewers see that the number is reasoned rather than rounded up.
- Link each cost to a named aim, task or work package
- State quantities and units, not just totals
- Explain changes between years, such as fieldwork peaks or equipment in Year 1
- Mention cost sharing or existing resources where they strengthen feasibility
Common budget signals that worry reviewers
Reviewers rarely cut budgets line by line, but they note when resources seem out of proportion to the work. A senior investigator at very low effort on a central aim can suggest limited commitment; very large equipment requests without shared-facility alternatives can suggest poor planning; no costs for data management, open access or dissemination can suggest those plans are not real. We help you address these points before submission, and our impact and dissemination plans service makes sure outreach activities are costed.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Illustrative budget justification lines
A fictional three-year public health study with community surveys in two districts. The lines show the level of reasoning we aim for; amounts are omitted on purpose.
Personnel: project coordinator
One coordinator at 50 percent effort in Years 1–3 (six person-months per year) to manage survey logistics, train enumerators and liaise with district health offices (WP2, WP3). Effort rises in Year 2 during fieldwork and is covered by the same appointment.
Participant costs
A small incentive per household for 600 households per survey wave across two waves, in line with the ethics committee's approved compensation and local practice.
Dissemination
Two community feedback meetings per district in Year 3 (venue and refreshments) and one open access article processing charge, supporting the dissemination plan in Section 5.
Illustrative example with invented project details. Real justifications use your institution's rates and your funder's categories.
What you’ll need to provide
- Funder budget guidance, caps and any required templates
- Your work plan or draft methods and timeline
- Institutional rate information or a contact in your research office
- Quotes for equipment, services or subcontracts if available
- Details of partners, subawards and any cost sharing
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Number of years, partners and budget categories
- Whether you need a structure, a justification or both
- Complexity of subawards, cost sharing or multi-currency consortia
- Number of reconciliation rounds with your research office
Turnaround depends on
- Availability of official rates and quotes from your institution
- Stability of the work plan
- Internal deadlines for budget sign-off
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Can you tell me my institution's indirect cost rate?
No. Rates are set by agreement between your institution and the relevant government agency or funder, and your research office holds them. We explain how rates are applied and draft text consistent with the figures they provide.
How much should I ask for?
Ask for what the work genuinely needs within the funder's caps. Asking too little signals poor planning as much as asking too much. We help you build the budget from activities upward and flag areas that look under- or over-resourced.
Do you handle foundation budgets too?
Yes. Foundations vary widely in how they treat overhead and in-kind contributions, and many publish a policy. We help you present the budget and narrative in the foundation's format.
The budget was cut after award. Can you help rescope?
Yes. We can help you revise aims, work packages and the justification to match the approved amount, for discussion with your program officer.