Costing and Pricing

Cost

There is a project costing form (PCF) under development to meet fEC requirements (See What is fEC?). In its final form, it will exist in several versions specific to the main sponsor/ customer groups.

In addition to the cost elements identified by fEC, the PCF is also intended to ask for certain non-financial information that may have a bearing on the price eg Retention of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

Price

Costing and Pricing in the HE sector have become alarmingly confused because of the way many sponsors operate. (See Costing and Pricing – What is the difference?)

The Research Councils (RCs) offer a particularly good example. The RCs ask for "real" costings, and if the application is successful, the grant value is the same as the sum of these costs. This leads everyone involved into equating cost with price.

However, the costings requested by the RCs are selective and do not cover all types of cost. Therefore the RC “costing” is only part of the fEC (See table, What is fEC?), and should be regarded as a pricing exercise rather than as a costing exercise.

Setting Price
“Selling” at below fEC
Using QR as subsidy
School strategy and Pricing
Making Pricing Decisions - 18 page document, first circulated to Heads of Schools on 17 December 2004