The term "project funds" as mentioned in these Measures refers to the special funds used by the Natural Science Foundation of China to fund scientific and technological personnel to carry out basic research and scientific frontier exploration, and to support talent and team building.

For budget projects, supporting units should organize their scientific research and financial management departments to audit the project budget. If several units undertake the same project, the project leader (or applicant) of the supporting unit and the participants of the cooperative research unit shall prepare the project budget respectively according to their respective research tasks, which shall be prepared by the project leader (or applicant) after being audited and signed by the scientific research and financial departments of the unit.