Unit costs

A unit cost is a fixed amount per unit of something: per researcher-month, per person-day, per animal, per access to an infrastructure. You charge the number of units multiplied by the rate, and you prove the units rather than the spend.

It removes an entire category of administration. There are no receipts to reconcile, no depreciation schedules, no reconstruction of what a month of a person's time really cost. What you must be able to show is that the units happened: the researcher was employed and worked the months claimed, the samples were processed, the access took place.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions are built on this, which is why they are administratively the lightest part of Horizon Europe. Living, mobility and family allowances are unit costs adjusted by a country coefficient, and nobody submits a payslip to justify them.

Two special cases recur. SME owners and natural persons without a salary (a founder who takes dividends rather than pay) have no personnel cost to charge, so a unit cost fills the gap that would otherwise leave their time unfunded. Internally invoiced goods and services can be charged at a unit cost calculated from the beneficiary's own cost accounting, which is how core facilities bill projects.

The rate may be favourable or unfavourable relative to what you actually spend, and you carry that difference either way. That is the bargain: certainty and low administration in exchange for accepting a price you did not set.