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Ok let's try approaching this a different way for a moment. If all of that $1.8M in your example went to the electron microscope, and there was no overhead, how

Ok let's try approaching this a different way for a moment. If all of that $1.8M in your example went to the electron microscope, and there was no overhead, how would any of the following be funded: - the building housing the scope? - The electricity used by the scope (non-negligible in this case) - The staff to run it - training to use it - maintenece - hr/legal/accounting services regarding the grant itself? Furhter, without the above services, not only do you need to fund that stuff, you must now take time away from actually researching to hire those people (for free!), to manage those people and resources, and essentially not do science in order to save science from the evil humanities leeches. My point, and the point you are conveniently being a disingenuous about, is that you can't just take some money and "do science" there is always going to be other factors necessarily involved. As for proof of universities vs companies: I can only offer anecdotal evidence, but it is pretty strong. We do lots of research for various government groups, and I find it telling that when we first started working with the DOE on big grants, the were shocked at our overhead rates, which are half the national labs, and much less than other companies. Yet they are happy with our level of research, and have given us more research because they get a better "bang for their buck". Similarly we had some pretty specialized work that needed to be done for one of our projects, so we considered having SAIC or Honeywell do some of that work. We couldn't because to get one engineer for 50% (half of every work day for a year) cost $500K (after overhead). For that we instead hire a good engineer, an appropriate work environment for him, and still had $200K to more tasks down the road. (not to mention the ability to get more grants in which that work is done now).

yummyfajitas 15y ago
Of the items you mentioned, only rent, electricity and legal/accounting services pay are paid for by overhead. HR services are charged directly to the grant - if a grad student receives $20k in salary (+ health benefits), the university charges about $50k to the grant. The staff to run the machine, training and maintenance are not paid for out of overhead. Also, PIs need to do their own grant accounting.
- sophacles 15y ago
  That depends on the university then. Some places do in fact pay staff from general college funds (aka the result of overhead). Either way, you are completely and utterly ignoring my question: How do you propose handling this things other than the overhead method, and how do you expect to find a way to do so cheaper than than a university, given that all other entities which can meet the governments requirements for getting grant charge so very much more?
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    ...how do you expect to find a way to do so cheaper than than a university, given that all other entities which can meet the governments requirements for getting grant charge so very much more? I'd relax the government's requirements and allow more entities (including individual PIs) to get grants. I'd also demand that universities itemize their overhead costs. Every commercial property manager successfully itemizes the cost of a building, electricity and cleaning services. Every outsourced HR agency itemizes employee payroll costs. As a taxpayer, I'd like the government to properly audit these services and bar any universities which overcharge from getting further grants.
    - sophacles 15y ago
      You know that all the public universities already do this right? The books, including salaries are 100% public in many states for (at least for the state universities). Why do you think they are so much cheaper than the companies and Private PIs that do get grants? (BTW that thing you wish for exists: look at SWRI for example). The only requirement to get grants is the ability to convince the grantors that you can do the work more effectively than the other applicants.

yummyfajitas 15y ago

Of the items you mentioned, only rent, electricity and legal/accounting services pay are paid for by overhead. HR services are charged directly to the grant - if a grad student receives $20k in salary (+ health benefits), the university charges about $50k to the grant. The staff to run the machine, training and maintenance are not paid for out of overhead. Also, PIs need to do their own grant accounting.

sophacles 15y ago
That depends on the university then. Some places do in fact pay staff from general college funds (aka the result of overhead). Either way, you are completely and utterly ignoring my question: How do you propose handling this things other than the overhead method, and how do you expect to find a way to do so cheaper than than a university, given that all other entities which can meet the governments requirements for getting grant charge so very much more?
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  ...how do you expect to find a way to do so cheaper than than a university, given that all other entities which can meet the governments requirements for getting grant charge so very much more? I'd relax the government's requirements and allow more entities (including individual PIs) to get grants. I'd also demand that universities itemize their overhead costs. Every commercial property manager successfully itemizes the cost of a building, electricity and cleaning services. Every outsourced HR agency itemizes employee payroll costs. As a taxpayer, I'd like the government to properly audit these services and bar any universities which overcharge from getting further grants.
  - sophacles 15y ago
    You know that all the public universities already do this right? The books, including salaries are 100% public in many states for (at least for the state universities). Why do you think they are so much cheaper than the companies and Private PIs that do get grants? (BTW that thing you wish for exists: look at SWRI for example). The only requirement to get grants is the ability to convince the grantors that you can do the work more effectively than the other applicants.