Criteria for determining whether a federal sponsored project is a "major project or activity"

“Major projects or activities” are defined as those that require an extensive amount of administrative or clerical support (defined as an amount which is significantly greater than the routine level of such services provided by the department). Some examples from A-21 include:

• Large, complex programs such as General Clinical Research Centers, Primate Centers, Program Projects, environmental research centers, engineering research centers, and other grants and contracts that entail assembling and managing teams of investigators from a number of institutions.
• Projects which involve extensive data accumulation, analysis and entry, surveying, tabulation, cataloging, searching literature, and reporting (such as epidemiological studies, clinical trials, and retrospective clinical records studies).
• Projects that require making travel and meeting arrangements for large numbers of participants, such as conferences and seminars.
• Projects whose principal focus is the preparation and production of manuals and large reports, books and monographs (excluding routine progress and technical reports).
• Projects that are geographically inaccessible to normal departmental administrative services, such as research vessels, radio astronomy projects, and other research fields sites that are remote from campus.
• Individual projects requiring project-specific database management; individualized graphics or manuscript preparation; human or animal protocols; and multiple project-related investigator coordination and communications.

Procedure to use when you believe that your project is a “Major Project or Activity” and plan to include administrative costs in the project .

In order for these costs to be charged, the PI or the department should:

• Notify the pre-award office reviewing their proposal that they consider the project to fall under the “major project or activity” criteria by marking “Yes” on the SU-42 form, and including the following language in the budget justification:
  
  “The PI has determined that this is a major project, as defined by OMB Circular A-21, and meets A-21 requirements for direct charging of administrative expenses.  All effort and expenses charged to this project will be for services specific to the project, and not for the general support of the academic activities of the faculty or Department.  In addition, effort charged to this project can be specifically identified to the project." (describe specific administrative costs that make the project major)
  
  
• budget the proposed costs, and
  
  
• itemize the specific administrative costs they believe should be covered under the "major project or activity" definition in the proposal and include in the budget justification the reason why those administrative costs should be charged to the project

If these procedures are followed and a sponsor issues an award to the University without specifically disallowing these costs, you may direct charge the costs to the project.  [PIs are responsible for notifying the University if they receive correspondence from the agency not otherwise available to institutional officials that specifies that one or more costs are disallowed.  (e.g., an NIH Summary Statement.)]

Resources

The resources on the Administrative Charging page will help guide you through the process of determining whether or not a project is "major".