The updated policy includes provisions and recommendations regarding allowable costs to support data management and sharing. It is important to note that all costs must be incurred during the performance period. For example, if you intend to submit data to an external archive to be preserved for 10 years after the end of the project, any submission fees or other costs must be paid to the repository provider in full before the end of the performance period.
Specific information about allowable and unallowable costs from the NIH website:
Allowable Costs
Reasonable, allowable costs may be included in NIH budget requests for:
- Curating data
- Developing supporting documentation
- Formatting data according to accepted community standards, or for transmission to and storage at a selected repository for long-term preservation and access
- De-identifying data
- Preparing metadata to foster discoverability, interpretation, and reuse
- Local data management considerations, such as unique and specialized information infrastructure necessary to provide local management and preservation (for example, before deposit into an established repository).
- Preserving and sharing data through established repositories, such as data deposit fees.
- If the Data Management & Sharing (DMS) plan proposes deposition to multiple repositories, costs associated with each proposed repository may be included.
Unallowable Costs
- Budget requests must NOT include:
- Infrastructure costs that are included in institutional overhead (for instance, Facilities and Administrative costs)
- Costs associated with the routine conduct of research, including costs associated with collecting or gaining access to research data.
- Costs that are double charged or inconsistently charged as both direct and indirect costs
