Are overhead or indirect costs eligible costs?
Aside from the direct labour cost associated with the preparation of claims and related project oversight, for example by the Research Services Office of a university, overhead and indirect costs are not eligible costs. CANARIE appreciates that the funding of 100% of incurred incremental eligible project costs does not constitute the funding of all costs associated with a project. However, our funding agreement with Industry Canada would not allow the funding of 100% of project costs if that were taken to include overhead. In examining such options as, for example, the funding of 75% of direct costs plus overhead, we concluded that 100% of eligible project costs but no overhead was the optimal approach.
