Calculating payroll and indirect expenses for the university and university college sector

Rates for researcher time in the university and university college sector and for the health trusts

For organisations in the higher education sector, the Research Council of Norway will only fund a proportion of expensed personnel and indirect costs. The rates will also be used by the health trusts when employees participate as researchers in projects.

"Researcher time" is the working hours used by academic staff to carry out R&D activities. It consists of planning, facilitation, implementation and documentation of the R&D activities. Academic supervision of any research fellows funded by the project is also considered research time.

The Research Council's funding for researcher time is given as a lump-sum grant to the organisation where the researcher is employed. The support is intended to help cover salaries, social security costs and indirect costs. The rates for man-years can be divided by 12 man-months or 1628 man-hours.

Rate for 2024 and 2025

The rate is NOK 1,312,000 for 2024 and NOK 1,372,000 for 2025. For funding for projects with a duration of more than one year, you can use the same rates as for research fellows (see rates for funding of research fellowships). Rates for funding may differ from the budgeted costs the organisation has associated with researcher time.

For both the higher education sector and the health trusts, any difference between the budgeted costs for researcher time and the Research Council's rates for funding researcher time must be covered through own or other funding. This is clarified in each individual call.

A calculation example for a typical research project

An academic employee works seven months in the project per year. TDI man-years are estimated to be NOK 1,600,000. The budgeted annual personnel and indirect costs for the person involved in the project will then be: NOK 1,600,000/12*7 = NOK 933,333. The round-the-clock annual rate for funding of research time from the Research Council for 2020 is NOK 1,125,000 or NOK 93,750 per month. You can apply for funding from the Research Council for a maximum of the time the researcher is working on the project, i.e. 7 months per year = NOK 656,250 in this example. This gives a difference of NOK 277,083 between budgeted costs for researcher time and funding from the Research Council. The difference must be covered by own funding by the organisation where the researcher works or by other funding.

Please also note that if we have special conditions and guidelines, this will be stated in the announcement.

For technical staff and research assistants who are not included in the TDI model's calculation basis, the actual personnel and indirect costs must be budgeted. Funding from the Research Council may not exceed the lump-sum rate for academic staff. Any difference between actual costs and the Research Council's rates must be covered through own or other funding. This is clarified in each individual call.

Rates and the recording of any differences in the budget also apply to the health trusts when research time for academic staff at such organisations is included in the project.

Costs for supervision of research fellows

When the project manager or other project participants are supervisors for research fellows funded by the project, costs for academic supervision of these research fellows may be entered as project costs. Costs for supervision must be based on the supervisor's hourly rate/FTE cost and be entered together with other research time the supervisor has in the project.

When the grant application includes a research stay abroad or in Norway

Costs relating to research stays abroad for Norwegian researchers (Overseas Research Grants) or research visits to Norway for researchers from other countries (Visiting Researcher Grants) must be calculated according to the designated rates. These are to be entered under “Other operating expenses” in the cost plan in the grant application form. These rates also determine the basis for calculating funding from the Research Council. Actual costs relating to the research stay are to be documented in the final accounts.