I am between meetings, no sense in starting to write, so I wanted to talk about grant budgets. As in: how does one put together an NIH grant budget?

I encounter this often with junior faculty writing their first grant. I'll be all ready to talk questions, specific aims, experimental approach and they are all: I need help with my budget.

Before you start - look around your institution. Do you have a research development specialist or a really good research administrator that can help you? The reason I say this, someone from inside will have lots of these unknowns figured out. Use help whenever possible.

So, back to NIH budgets.

First, decide if you will do a modular or non-modular budget. I recommend modular for first-time grants because the administrative burden is easier. Modular budgets are limited to $250K in direct costs but you don't have to justify every $.

Your institution will likely still require a detailed budget. Ask your research admin for a spread sheet. If they don't have one, tell your chair you need a better research admin. Then ask a senior colleague for a spread sheet.

First thing to figure out is your personnel. We already discussed PI effort (I like 15-30% overall effort). What if it's multi-PI? 10-20% per each PI. Your co-investigators? I start with 5% effort, I lower it to 3% if necessary. Going down to 1 inevitably results in criticism

"Are they really contributing anything at 1% effort?"

This might be painful if your co-Is are at cap. (anyone making over $189,600 get listed as $189,600, it can eat up the budget quickly)

Ask yourself: how much stats help will you need? If the work proposed is stats or bioinformatics heavy (say, clinical trial, omics data, etc), make sure you have a co-I with academic chops in that area (actively publishing, preferably academic appointment).

Personnel: how many people do you need to get the work done. My rule of thumb for modular budgets is 1.5 FTE (full time equivalent). So, 1 full time post-doc and one technician at 50%. Or 1 50% PD, 1 50% tech, and 1 50% research scientist.

I like at least 2 separate individuals on a grant because it allows for blinding of investigators (one treats mice, the other measures outcomes without knowing the treatment groups).

Should these individuals be key personnel? That depends on whether you need their specialized expertise to perform the work. If you are doing heavy bioinfo stuff and don't have a lot of published work in that area, but your PD does, they should be key personnel.

Otherwise, no.

Now you have your personnel set. Calculate the total for personnel budget (sum of their current salary x effort + fringe for (salary x effort). It's shocking, isn't it? People are the most expensive portion of a grant budget.

Next: equipment, travel, trainees. This is one bucket. On your sheet, mark these (equipment only for stuff that's $5,000 and over, travel $1,500 per person per year, no trainee cost because tuition remission is a different section). I generally like this at 1 25K module.

Other direct costs is everything else. This is a different bucket and it should hold all of the research associated costs.

Rule of thumb: materials and supplied for a wet lab - $20K-40K/year
Animals - this is tricky because it will depend on the type, #, duration of care, and your facilities. For nude mice for short term studies, $5K-10K. For gem, it can be a lot more than that. But remember, if...

your budget is modular, NIH will not see this, so do your best to estimate. It's the same bucket as everything else so you don't have to be precise.
Publications - $1,000 per year.
Core services - depending on what you are doing but put something down
Consultants - rarely IME

Patient care (rarely) and tuition remission (if university - talk to your res admin) go here too. All in one big other direct costs bucket. Add it up.

Subcontracts: unless absolutely necessary, I recommend against including a subcontract in your very first grant. Why? Paperwork burden. If you have a choice to not include a subcontract (can get the same service/collaboration at your own institution), then take it.

If you can't get away from doing a sub, you will need their budget and budget justification. That will be its own bucket and will have to be included in the budget justification. (there is a funky thing that happens here with budget going over 250K bc their F&A ...

... but the 250K limit is only for DC at the prime institution and at subs. So the budget will look like it went over, but as long as sum of your DC + sub's DC is 250K, you are fine.

Now take a look at your total DC. You want to be between $225K and $250K in DC. In a modular budget, it will round up to the nearest 25K module. A $226 DC grant will go into NIH as a $250 DC grant but a $224K grant will go in as $225.

That's 25K less a year. Don't leave money on the table (especially since almost everyone is aware that a mod budget is not enough these days)

I think Other Direct Costs is the best category to play with to get to the $225-$250K range. Or if above $250K, the best category to cut.

Now, because your Budget is modular, your budget justification need only include your personnel justification (who are they and what will they be doing on the grant), your sub justification (why do you need a sub), and any other justification (i.e. your tuition remission)

Want more info: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/how-to-apply-application-guide/format-and-write/develop-your-budget.htm