@F2erron @EUCommission No overhead allowed is likely not going to have the effect you hope, because the institution hosting your lab *will* take overhead no matter what, simply making it more difficult for you to cover this cost from other sources.

Ideally, governments would cover operating costs without conditions, so all project money could in fact fund projects. We don't live in this perfect world. The alternative is that funding agencies budget for overhead and promise they cover overhead for all awarded grants, freeing the applicants from worrying about it. This can make sense with public funding agencies, since in a way they would still be doing the government's job that way (but not ideal, since it would be better for all rather than for successful projects). Private foundations of course do whatever they want, and they might be right thinking it's not their job to fund operating costs.