Procedure Library

Budgeting for Data, Data Management, and Evaluation Costs

Purpose

Guide those completing a budget that includes data, data management, data sharing, and evaluation costs.

Applicability

Principal Investigators (PIs) and administrators who develop a budget and determine reasonable, allowable costs directly attributable to the project for making data accessible and reuseable. 

In all cases, review the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for any program-specific requirements.

Data & Evaluation Costs

When budgeting data costs, you will want to carefully itemize all anticipated expenses related to data collection, storage, analysis, and management throughout the project, including costs for data acquisition tools, software licenses, data cleaning services, cloud storage, and personnel time dedicated to data handling, ensuring a comprehensive and justifiable budget that reflects the project's data needs.

Key aspects to consider when budgeting data costs:
Data collection methods:

• Surveys: Costs of survey design, distribution platforms (online, mail), data cleaning services.
• Experiments: Costs of equipment, sensors, data loggers, data acquisition systems.
• Interviews: Transcription services if needed
• Secondary data: Costs of accessing data from external sources, licensing fees.

Data Storage:

• Cloud storage: Costs of cloud storage space based on estimated data volume.
• Local storage: Costs of hard drives or dedicated servers for data backup.
• Is there a deposit fee for any of the planned repositories?
  • Does the repository allow pre-payment or deposit so that charges can be incurred during the period of performance?

Data analysis software:

• Statistical software licenses: Costs of software like SPSS, SAS, R, depending on the complexity of analysis.
• Specialized software: Costs for specific data analysis tools relevant to your research field (e.g., GIS, network analysis tools).

Data management practices:

• Data cleaning and preparation: Personnel time allocated for data cleaning, coding, and formatting.
• Data sharing and archiving: Costs associated with depositing data in a public repository.

Personnel costs:

• Will you need dedicated research personnel time to  support any data management and sharing activities to meet repository requirements?
• Research assistants: Time dedicated to data collection, cleaning, and analysis.
• IT support: Costs for technical assistance with data management plans.
• If not personnel time, will you need to engage the services of a center or vendor to complete:
  1. Data curation?
  2. Developing supporting documentation?
  3. Formatting data according to accepted community standards or for transmission and storage at selected repository?

Allowable Costs

The federal government has clarified that:

"Data costs include (but are not limited to) the expenditures needed to gather, store, track, manage, analyze, disaggregate, secure, share, publish, or otherwise use data to administer or improve the program, such as data systems, personnel, data dashboards, cybersecurity, and related items. 

Data costs may also include direct or indirect costs associated with building integrated data systems (that link individual-level data from multiple state and local government agencies) for purposes of management, research, and evaluation. 

Evaluation costs include (but are not limited to) evidence reviews, evaluation planning and feasibility assessment, conducting evaluations, sharing evaluation results, and other personnel or materials costs related to the effective building and use of evidence and evaluation for program design, administration, or improvement"

NIH Guidance

• Budgeting for Data Management and Sharing
• Allowable Costs
• Unallowable Costs
• Requesting & Justifying Costs for Data Management and Sharing
• Assessment of Budget

Instructions

1. Budget
   
   1. Direct costs needed to support data management and sharing activities are generally budgeted in the appropriate corresponding line item (personnel in the personnel section, equipment in the equipment section, etc.). If there are Other Costs appropriate to include, reflect those in Other.
2. Budget Justification
   1. Sponsors will want applicants to specify estimated data management and sharing cost details within the Budget Justification or Additional Narrative Justification (for the NIH Modular Budget format).
   2. If a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) is required, a section clearly labeled "Data Management and Sharing Justification" should be included within the budget justification followed by the requested dollar amount.
   3. This section should provide a brief summary of the type and amount of scientific data to be preserved and shared and the name of the selected established repository(ies) for each data type. Even though direct costs with data management and sharing activities may be spread across multiple budget categories, this section should be added. It should include general cost categories (curation, developing supporting documentation, local data management activities, repository fees, etc.), including an amount for each category and a brief explanation.
   4. The recommended length of this section of the justification is no more than half a page.
   5. Sometimes this summary is the only plan content reviewers will be able to review as they may not have access to the full submitted DMSP.
3. University of Utah as Subrecipient
   1. When UU is a sub, the UU PI should discuss roles and responsibilities with the prime or pass-through entity (PTE) PI while preparing the proposal materials.
   2. UU PI should request a copy of the final (or near final) DMSP from the prime/PTE PI and ensure that everything is as expected and achievable.
   3. UU PI should ensure that appropriate costs related to data management and sharing activities have been included in the UU budget.

Related Policies and Procedures

• Grants Toolbox > NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy
• Grant Life Cycle > Step 6. Share Your Research