Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A postdoctoral salary charged 100 percent to a grant for the duration of an award is a direct cost.
- Is an instance
Reagents ordered for a specific experiment and consumed entirely on the project are direct costs.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
The salary of a departmental secretary supporting many projects is typically indirect.
- Not an instance
Utilities for the building are indirect, not direct.
Editorial commentary
Direct costs sit opposite indirect costs (overheads). Funder rules define which categories are eligible and how they must be documented. In US federal awards under 2 CFR 200 (Uniform Guidance), direct costs must satisfy allowability, allocability, reasonableness, and consistency criteria. In Horizon Europe, direct costs are subdivided into A (personnel), B (subcontracting), C (purchase costs: travel, equipment depreciation, other goods/works/services), D (other), and E (in-kind contributions). Mis-classification between direct and indirect is the most frequent audit finding.
References
- US Office of Management and Budget Uniform Guidance 2 CFR 200; Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement.
Also known as
DC · Direct project costs
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Direct costs"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/direct-costs" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"name": "Direct costs",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/direct-costs",
"description": "Project costs that can be specifically and unambiguously attributed to a single sponsored research activity, including project-specific personnel salaries, materials and consumables, equipment, travel, and subaward costs.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/funding-lifecycle-and-financial-vocabulary/",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/direct-costs",
"sameAs": [
"DC",
"Direct project costs"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}
