Pilot Budgeting

Allowable and unallowable costs

Note, this is not a comprehensive list. Applicants are encouraged to discuss allowable expenses with the center administration if there are questions.

Allowable expenses

  • Graduate student tuition remission as part of University of Arizona mandatory benefit for students employed as GRAs
  • Participant incentives for human subjects
  • Research staff salary support
  • Research supplies and animal maintenance
  • Shared cores/resources fees
  • SWEHSC facility core fees
  • Travel (domestic, directly related to the conduct of research)

Unallowable expenses

  • Books and periodicals
  • Construction, renovation, or maintenance of building or laboratories
  • Computing devices
  • Equipment (valued at $5,000 or more)
  • Honoraria and travel expenses for visiting lectures
  • Hosting costs
  • Membership dues 
  • Office and laboratory furniture
  • Office supplies 
  • Publication costs, including reprints
  • Recruiting and relocation expenses
  • Rental of office or laboratory space
  • Salary of principal investigators and salary support for Senior, Program leaders, or shared resource personnel 
  • Secretarial or administrative salaries
  • Training expenditures
  • Travel (foreign)
  • Travel (domestic, unrelated to the conduct of research)
  • Tuition and fees (graduate student tuition remission as part of U of A mandatory benefit for students employed as GRAs is an allowable expense)

Indirect costs

  • Not allowed

Encouraged budget items

SWEHSC facility cores and resources

We encourage applicants to use our cores and resources. More information on those cores (and related resources) is available through consultation with Dr. Xinxin Ding and via our website:

Additional resources within these cores include the following:

Community projects

To prioritize projects addressing arid lands and Southwest regional environmental justice issues, one pilot grant is designated to support a meritorious proposal related to unique populations, including rural communities and Native American and Latinx peoples residing in arid lands. The review of proposals addressing environmental justice issues is conducted in cooperation with the Community Engagement Core.

Career development

Some pilot funds have been set aside to promote the following initiatives that fall within our Career Development Program:

  • Provide mentorship and guidance to the next generation of EHS scientists to inspire independence and career growth.
  • Provide opportunities for EHS scientists to advance into leadership roles both within the UA and on a national or international level.
  • Integrate other scientific disciplines into EHS research by cross-training and collaborating with established scientists.

This funding requires participation in the Career Development program and offers access to the resources it affords. More information on those resources is available through the link above. If you wish to be considered for this funding, please indicate this in the body of your application via the yes/no question dedicated to it.

Research, Innovation & Impact core fees

We also encourage pilot participants to use the Research Innovation, and Impact (RII) core facilities and have separate funding available to support this (up to $15,000). These RII core user fees are available for use at the following RII cores and the University Animal Care core.

Allowable RII cores

  • Analytical and Biological Mass Spectrometry
  • Cryogenics & Compressed Gas Facility
  • Flow Cytometry (LCC Room 0935 & MRB Room 240K2)*
  • Functional Genomics Core
  • Imaging Core - Electron
  • Imaging Core - Optical (Marley & LSN)
  • Machine and Welding Center
  • Micro/Nano Fabrication Center
  • Translational Bioimaging Resource 
  • Arizona Genetics Core (formerly University of Arizona Genetics Core)
  • University Animal Care (Before using funds at this core, customer must email corebusiness@email.arizona.edu and uac-billing@email.arizona.edu )

*Flow Cytometry only (not the Human Immune Monitoring side of the shared resource). Allowable charges include charges relating to the following instruments: Fortessa, Aria, Canto, Imagestream, and Attune. Flow staff members are Mark Curry and John Fitch. Unallowable charges include: any charges from Immune Monitoring Shared Resource (IMSR in LCC Room 0911& 0913) by Pat Gundy and her staff who operates the Cytek Aurora, Agilent Seahorse, and Nanostring GeoMx services.

Important notes

The pilot application available online through Arizona Cultivate includes a separate section of text fields in which to capture the total RII funds requested and requires an itemization by cost/core.

Upon award, these funds are accessed through the PI’s lab group in iLab.

Orders must be placed within iLab at the allowable cores (no pass-through charges are allowed).

Some RII cores, like Flow Cytometry, are shared resources with other entities like the University of Arizona Cancer Center. Only the RII cores listed here and, in the case of shared resources, only the RII portion of those cores is an allowable use of these funds.