Allowable costs are cost elements (person-hours, goods or services) that are useful for the activity success and that are provided by any of the consortium members (Prime contractor and/or subcontractor/s). ESA will pay a certain percentage of these eligible costs (usually 50%) depending on the consortium entity composition (SME, non-SME, University, Research center).
Typical examples of allowable costs include:
- Direct Material Cost
- Direct Labour Cost
- Supplies
- Providing facilities
- Indirect costs (with some limitations)
- etc.
Any product/service/supply/facility provided to the consortium member free of charge by a third entity that is not formally part of the bidding consortium cannot be claimed as allowable costs. For example, if you have a customer willing to offer 100 hours of testing for your solution, this can only be an allowable cost if the customer is part of the consortium.
Please also note that hardware and software whose use is not limited to the InCubed activity shall be amortised over its lifetime and only the period (months) in which they will be used for the activity shall be listed as allowable/eligible activity costs.
Please refer to the General Clauses and Conditions for ESA Contracts (ESA/REG/002 rev. 3) Annex 1, Section 4 for the allowable costs.