4 ms·

People don't understand how hard it is to get tenure. You have to win grants from the NIH to get tenure. Why? Because for every grant the NIH gives to scientist

People don't understand how hard it is to get tenure. You have to win grants from the NIH to get tenure. Why? Because for every grant the NIH gives to scientist, the Universities tack on indirect costs (whatever that means) allowing them collect upwards of 50% of the grant for the University. Research grants are a cast cow, and it's really f* up

colechristensen 8y ago
They take 50% and spend it on flashy buildings and ballooning administrative salaries.
- apathy 8y ago
  It’s adorable that people think a research university would settle for just 50% indirects. Try 90% and almost all of it goes to the football coach or the dean’s legal fees.
  - newen 8y ago
    What university takes 90% of grant money for overhead? 30-50% for overhead is what I familiar with.
    - apathy 8y ago
      At one point it was typical — looks like scrutiny has driven indirects down massively outside of dedicated research institutes in the past few years. https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates HMS declared rate is 58% but there are a lot of loopholes (as at other R1s with Institutes)
- davidmr 8y ago
  I’m absolutely not defending academia as an industry. I did my time there, and I would never go back. To say that the overhead goes to flashy buildings and fat admin paychecks is a bit of a misrepresentation. Those buildings almost always have a major donor and a substantial endowment component. The academic (especially physical and biological science) divisions do actually need to pay for office space, lab space, heat, staff to run it, clean it, make the computers go, etc. If you think my salary was ballooning while building and running everyone’s HPC clusters, I can assure you it wasn’t in any sense other than perhaps slowly deflating over time. Compared to whatever the football coach and president are being paid, there are thousands of people on staff who aren’t getting those fat paychecks.
secabeen 8y ago
Indirect costs are everything that you need to do research that can't be directly allocated to the research. So you use research funds to pay a researcher, buy chemicals or equipment, etc. Indirect funds cover everything else: real estate costs, power, water, sewer, trash collection, Internet, WiFi and phone, building maintenance, HVAC, etc. When we build buildings to house researchers, all of the costs related to those buildings and space are covered by indirect funds. It also covers a bunch of human costs, such as the staff handling payroll, grant reporting and other compliance costs around the grant, the campus fire protection and police departments, etc. etc.
hpcjoe 8y ago
Well, for those of us in the Physical Sciences, winning NIH grants isn't quite what we aimed for ... but your point is valid. For any of the granting agencies, NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, etc. your grant is loaded with overhead/indirect costs.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
emmelaich 8y ago
djb has a good series on this https://cr.yp.to/uic.html https://cr.yp.to/uic.html

colechristensen 8y ago

They take 50% and spend it on flashy buildings and ballooning administrative salaries.

apathy 8y ago
It’s adorable that people think a research university would settle for just 50% indirects. Try 90% and almost all of it goes to the football coach or the dean’s legal fees.
- newen 8y ago
  What university takes 90% of grant money for overhead? 30-50% for overhead is what I familiar with.
  - apathy 8y ago
    At one point it was typical — looks like scrutiny has driven indirects down massively outside of dedicated research institutes in the past few years. https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates HMS declared rate is 58% but there are a lot of loopholes (as at other R1s with Institutes)
davidmr 8y ago
I’m absolutely not defending academia as an industry. I did my time there, and I would never go back. To say that the overhead goes to flashy buildings and fat admin paychecks is a bit of a misrepresentation. Those buildings almost always have a major donor and a substantial endowment component. The academic (especially physical and biological science) divisions do actually need to pay for office space, lab space, heat, staff to run it, clean it, make the computers go, etc. If you think my salary was ballooning while building and running everyone’s HPC clusters, I can assure you it wasn’t in any sense other than perhaps slowly deflating over time. Compared to whatever the football coach and president are being paid, there are thousands of people on staff who aren’t getting those fat paychecks.

secabeen 8y ago

Indirect costs are everything that you need to do research that can't be directly allocated to the research. So you use research funds to pay a researcher, buy chemicals or equipment, etc. Indirect funds cover everything else: real estate costs, power, water, sewer, trash collection, Internet, WiFi and phone, building maintenance, HVAC, etc. When we build buildings to house researchers, all of the costs related to those buildings and space are covered by indirect funds. It also covers a bunch of human costs, such as the staff handling payroll, grant reporting and other compliance costs around the grant, the campus fire protection and police departments, etc. etc.

hpcjoe 8y ago

Well, for those of us in the Physical Sciences, winning NIH grants isn't quite what we aimed for ... but your point is valid. For any of the granting agencies, NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, etc. your grant is loaded with overhead/indirect costs.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

emmelaich 8y ago

djb has a good series on this https://cr.yp.to/uic.html https://cr.yp.to/uic.html