aaaaand here it comes.

The first notice posted to the NIH guide in two weeks is NOT-OD-25-068 Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates.

The purpose reads, in part: “Pursuant to this Supplemental Guidance, there will be a standard indirect rate of 15% across all NIH grants for indirect costs in lieu of a separately negotiated rate for indirect costs in every grant.”

The NIH implementation portion reads, in part: “For any new grant issued, and for all existing grants to IHEs retroactive to the date of issuance of this Supplemental Guidance, award recipients are subject to a 15 percent indirect cost rate. … This policy shall be applied to all current grants for go forward expenses from February 10, 2025 forward as well as for all new grants issued.”

Their justification includes a lot of talk about how private foundations mandate a much lower IDC, including the Gates foundation. Which, I happen to know, permits a lot more to be charged to direct costs than the NIH does.

This also applies in a similar way to the variety within NIH IDC rates negotiated at different recipient institutions. That is, some “low IDC” institutions claw things back out of direct costs (say, an access-to-the-internet fee) that “high IDC” institutions pay for out of IDCs.

The bottom line here is that you can expect your institution to start charging your directs for all kinds of stuff they previously paid for out of IDC.

NIH has no intention of increasing the direct costs to cover this, I would assume.