At the moment, only Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) considers bench fees an eligible cost - and only in a call-specific manner. Be sure to read the call text carefully or reach out to us before including bench fees in your budget to NNF. Documentation of our bench policy is requested by the foundation in the form of a link to our policy or appending the policy as an attachment to all application. You can find our policy here.
Where applicable, the Novo Nordisk Foundation allows for a bench fee of 8,000 DKK per full-time month per academic employee working on the project. That is, you can in the application budgets to NNF include 96,000 DKK per year for each scientific person working full-time on a given project. For partial affiliations, you will have to scale down accordingly. If a person covered by the grant is working 50% of her/his time on the project, the eligible bench fee is halfed, that is 48,000 DKK per year.
Please note that "the budget must specify the expenses covered by the bench fee". Eligible expenses are items such as:
• Common or shared laboratory expenses and consumables
• Laboratory utilities (electricity, gas, water)
• Maintenance of essential equipment
• Service contracts
• Technical and IT support
The following expenses are NOT eligible expenses as part of the bench fee:
• Rent
• Administrative support
• Representation
• Social contributions