Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A grant six months into a 24-month period has a burn rate of 8 percent per month, projecting a 4 percent overspend.
- Is an instance
A research finance dashboard flags any award with burn rate more than 1.5 standard deviations off the linear baseline.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A snapshot total spent at month 12 is not a rate.
- Not an instance
A subaward's individual line-item spend without time context is not burn rate.
Editorial commentary
Burn rate is a core monitoring metric in post-award management. It is calculated as cumulative expenditure divided by months elapsed, projected forward to estimate the end-of-period spend. Significant deviation from the planned linear or weighted profile triggers management review. Research finance dashboards often visualise burn rate alongside encumbrance and remaining commitment. The term carries different connotations in venture-funded startups, but the post-award meaning here is operational.
References
- NACUBO and ARMA post-award management guidance; US NIH financial monitoring guidance.
Also known as
Spend rate · Expenditure rate · Cash burn rate (grant)
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Burn rate (grant)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/burn-rate-grant" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Burn rate (grant)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/burn-rate-grant",
"description": "The rate at which a grant's funds are being expended over time, typically expressed as currency-per-month or as a percentage of the budget consumed per period, used to forecast end-of-period spend and identify under- or over-spend trajectories.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/funding-lifecycle-and-financial-vocabulary/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/burn-rate-grant",
"sameAs": [
"Spend rate",
"Expenditure rate",
"Cash burn rate (grant)"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
