[staff-physics-and-astronomy-HL-UHD-UD] New calculation of overhead on projects per May 1, 2025

[Juan Rojo]

Dear colleagues,

As discussed in previous staff lunches, the VU has been working on a new 
policy to calculate the overheads to be assigned to projects.

The current policy has, as we know very well, as main problem the fact 
that it led to large own contributions (from the 1st money stream) to be 
paid by the department in case the project was awarded, specially for 
the experimental departments. This has associated a negative incentive 
to apply for many grants, since it leads to a net financial loss for the 
department.

Please find attached a memo describing the new VU policy to charge 
overheads to external projects. This policy will be applied to all 
awarded after 1st May 2025, including those which we have already 
requested.

An English version of the memo is being prepared and will be circulated 
asap.

The main change is that overheads charged to a grant are not computed on 
the basis of FTEs, as before, but depend on the type of grant and of the 
total amount of funding granted. Specifically

- For 3rd money stream grants for which overhead is covered by the grant 
provider (ERC, MSCA IEF, MSCA DN, but also Templeton, NIH, Human 
Frontiers etc), in the new system the amount of overheads charged to the 
grant coincides with the amount allowed by the grant provider. For 
example, ERC grants provide 25% overhead, so now the VU will just charge 
25% overhead to an ERC grant, so that no extra contribution from the 
department will be needed, at least related to overheads. The same holds 
say for MSCA fellowships: if the EU pays for 12% overheads, then the VU 
will charge only 12% overheads.

- For 2nd money stream projects (NWO, KNAW), which in the current system 
are not charged overhead, the VU will change now overheads. For Beta, 
this ranges between 2% to 4%, depending on how large the grant is. For 
example, for a Vici the overheads charged will be 60K (irrespective of 
how many FTEs are requested)

- For 3rd money stream projects (public) which do not allow charging 
overheads (such as the National Growth Fund) Beta will charge a flat 
overhead of 20% to the department.

- For For 3rd money stream projects (private), nothing changes.

This change is overwhelmingly positive for the department, since we have 
a large portfolio of "Cluster 2" projects and it makes possible e.g. 
hosting MSCA fellowships which with the old system were not allowed. 
This means that many new opportunities for grant application open for 
us, and we should do our best to fully exploit them. Of course there are 
also negative aspects (in particular the fact that now overheads are 
also charged to NWO projects) but by and large this new policy will be 
beneficial for the department.

Note that, overheads aside, grant applications sometimes require own 
contributions from the department e.g. due to equipment depreciation or 
mismatch between salaries paid by the funding provider and the real 
salaries. So, as we have been doing so far, we will still look at 
individual project applications critically, but nevertheless the bottom 
line is that in principle *there is no funding source (except 3MS 
private) which will be excluded a priori*.

We understand that this significant change will raise many questions. We 
ourselves are still trying to understand all the details of the new 
system. If you have some very urgent questions feel free to reach out to 
Jordi. We have planned a dedicated discussion on the topic at the next 
Section Representative Meeting on May 13th, so you can also discuss 
internally your questions within the section and we will do our best to 
answer them.

We hope that this development further strengthens our already very 
successful efforts on external funding acquisition!!

Best,
Juan (on behalf of the MT)

-- 
-------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Juan Rojo
Professor of Theoretical Physics
Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy
Faculty of Science, VU Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1081, 1081HV Amsterdam
----
Nikhef Theory Group, Science Park 105,
1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
----
Webpage: http://www.juanrojo.com/
Zoom: https://vu-live.zoom.us/my/juanrojo
E-mail: j.rojo at vu.nl
         j.rojo at nikhef.nl
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