Project budgets for proposals
Last changed: 24 February 2023
Most funders require you to submit a project budget as part of your proposal. However, the budget is often left until late in the process, or not given enough attention. It is essential to put together a well-structured, balanced, and realistic budget for your application - not only to convince the evaluators that you can deliver the project, but also to make it easier to manage the project finances if your proposal is successful. The core support for preparing proposal budgets is the responsibility of department financial administrators. The Grants Office are here to provide additional advice to researchers and department financial administrators, including guidance and assistance using project budgeting tools, such as SLU’s project calculator.
If you, as a researcher, need some help with your project budget - please make sure to contact your department financial administrator as early in the process as possible. This is particularly important for large grants, and even more so when there are multiple partners involved in the proposal and SLU is the coordinator. We can help if you have questions about preparing your budget, and we will find the best way to work together (Grants Office, researcher and department financial administrator) to overcome any challenges you are facing.
Within the Grants Office, we have expertise in project financial administration, budgeting, and financial reporting - for national, EU and international funders. We can advise you on matters such as:
- Interpreting and obeying the funding rules from different funders (e.g. eligible costs, direct vs indirect costs, funding rates, subcontracting)
- Understanding and completing mandatory budget templates from funders
- Using SLU’s project calculator, to build your project budget or to submit your co-funding request (or both!)
- Considering the implications of project budgets in currencies other than SEK, or when multiple partners are using different currencies and exchange rates
- Your obligations under SLU’s external funding guidelines
In addition to providing advice for ongoing budget preparations, the Grants Office also works proactively to increase SLU’s knowledge and competence in project financial administration. We facilitate a network for all department financial administrators, focusing on EU funding as well as a recurring training course on application economy for project economists. You can read more about our offering for training and capacity development in the area of project budgeting and other topics relevant to external funding here.