In research administration, cost share (also referred to as matching) is the portion of a sponsored project’s total costs that is funded by the recipient institution or other non-sponsor sources rather than by the sponsoring agency. Cost sharing may be mandatory, when required by the sponsor and documented in the award agreement, or voluntary, when it is offered by the institution but not required by the sponsor.
The CECS and COS Post-Award Team is responsible for monitoring cost-share commitments throughout the life of the award and ensuring that all required cost sharing is properly documented, tracked, and fulfilled in accordance with the award terms and institutional policies.
Types of Cost Share Sources:
| Cash Provided by the college/department/institute/OR. Example: PI’s department E&G – Payroll for effort. A shell Grant account to be filled by department’s cost center worktags. May be tracked using UCF Award Budget Position Report. |
| In-Kind Provided in a variety of ways. See proposal and award document to verify. Example: PI’s students volunteer hours, 20 hours each for 5 students. This is manually calculated/monitored. No account number is generated. |
| Foregone Indirect Calculation based upon UCF’s federally negotiated indirect rate and applied to the cash portion of the cost share. Example: PI’s department providing $500 cash. The main project has a 52% indirect rate. The forgone amount is $260. This is manually calculated/monitored. No account number is generated. |
| Unrecovered Indirect Calculation based upon the difference between the indirect rate in the agreement and UCF’s federally negotiated rate. Example: PI’s department providing $500 cash. The main project has a 42% indirect rate. The unrecovered amount is 10% or $50. This is manually calculated/monitored. No account number is generated. |
| 3rd Party Cash Much like Cash, but an outside entity provides cash towards the project. Deposited as revenue and usually a separate Award ID and account number are generated. See proposal for their commitment letter/form. |
| 3rd Party In-Kind Much like In-kind, but an outside entity provides. No account number is generated. See proposal for their commitment letter/form. |
| Project to Project Cost share provided by another sponsored project. These instances are rare and it is required that prior approval is received from all parties, meaning both sponsors. |