5 ms·

A little known fact: the vast majority of grants (by volume of cash) are technically awarded to the professor's university rather than to the professor him/hers

by jforman 15y ago

A little known fact: the vast majority of grants (by volume of cash) are technically awarded to the professor's university rather than to the professor him/herself, giving the university broad control over the product of the professor's research. At least, this is the case in the life sciences. From time to time, this yields something good. Props to the grad school I dropped out of :)

lutorm 15y ago
This is because to be eligible for a grant, you need to be certified to comply with the federal rules. In most cases, this is done by the university getting the grant, but there are companies that will do this for you for a fee, and even examples where independent researchers have started an "institute" that has been certified. The advantage of the latter alternatives is of course that the administrative overhead is a small fraction of what a large research university charges.
impendia 15y ago
And don't forget about the 40% the university skims off the top (aka "indirect costs").
- larsberg 15y ago
  Overhead on grants is > 50%. The exact rate is negotiated between your university and its major funding agency (NSF or NIH), depending on which provides more grant money in total to your institution. That rate is then used uniformly across all grants.
  - Estragon 15y ago
    Yes, Universities have become fiscalized to an extent. They increasingly behave more like businesses whose purpose is to extract grant money from the government than institutions committed to learning and research. "The Heart of Research is Sick" http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/issues/lt2011/lt02/lt_2011_02_24_31.pdf http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/issues/lt2011/lt02/lt_2011_... Essentially, it’s the publication process. It has become a system of collecting counters for particular purposes – to get grants, to get tenure, etc. – rather than to communicate and illuminate findings to other people. The literature is, by and large, unreadable. It’s all written in a kind of code, with inappropriate data in large amounts, and the storyline is becoming increasingly orchestrated by this need to publish. We all know it. We all suffer from it. I think the changes to the scientific enterprise have been inexorable and progressive. The deterioration has been so steady that people don’t really realise how much things have changed.
    - wwwwrrrr 15y ago
      > The literature is, by and large, unreadable. It’s all written in a kind of code, with inappropriate data in large amounts, Seriously? I mean, Newton's Principia is written in Latin.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      A problem for many universities is that they don't even really succeed at it. This grant-sucking infrastructure isn't free, and apart from the direct costs of grantwriting / paperwork / etc., universities sometimes even undertake major expenditures with a view towards making themselves more attractive to grants, e.g. tailoring construction or hiring towards grant opportunities, flying people around and hosting events to oil the gears of potential partnerships, etc., etc. The top research universities pull in enough grants to make that all worth it, but many smaller universities don't ever come out ahead, though they like to pretend they do. There are small schools where they consider it a huge success that they land a $1m NSF grant now and then, but they are almost certainly spending more than $1m every few years to do so. In addition, even when you do land grants, co-financing is becoming more popular, so the university ends up having to kick in even more money in the successful case. A bit more on that from Georgia Tech's former CS dean: http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-sure-fire-ways-to-lose-money-on-research/ http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-su...
  - regehr 15y ago
    I always find "50% F&A" to be misleading. You add 50% to the grant budget to figure out how much money to ask for. Therefore, the actual amount of the grant that goes to overhead is more like 33%.
  - steve-howard 15y ago
    From my understanding working in research (I don't touch grants, though), universities are not supposed to take any administrative fees for small expenditures (I believe my PI said it was $5k here, but it was a while ago that I heard this).
    - _delirium 15y ago
      It's actually the opposite, I believe--- equipment expenditures over $5k with expected lifetime >1 yr are considered capital purchases improving the university's facilities, rather than expenses, and not subject to overhead. It leads to weird situations where it's actually cheaper to load up your $4k server with $1k in crap you don't really need, to turn it into a capital improvement.
      - steve-howard 15y ago
        That's actually very curious, because the stories I've heard are exactly the opposite of that -- building $100k servers $1k at a time, etc. Perhaps every school skims off the top in a different way.
- davidblair 15y ago
  I have seen substantial Federal grants that restrict overhead a university can take to ~20%. These grants were tied to the PI and the money follows the PI if they change institutions.

by jforman 15y ago

lutorm 15y ago

This is because to be eligible for a grant, you need to be certified to comply with the federal rules. In most cases, this is done by the university getting the grant, but there are companies that will do this for you for a fee, and even examples where independent researchers have started an "institute" that has been certified. The advantage of the latter alternatives is of course that the administrative overhead is a small fraction of what a large research university charges.

impendia 15y ago

And don't forget about the 40% the university skims off the top (aka "indirect costs").

larsberg 15y ago
Overhead on grants is > 50%. The exact rate is negotiated between your university and its major funding agency (NSF or NIH), depending on which provides more grant money in total to your institution. That rate is then used uniformly across all grants.
- Estragon 15y ago
  Yes, Universities have become fiscalized to an extent. They increasingly behave more like businesses whose purpose is to extract grant money from the government than institutions committed to learning and research. "The Heart of Research is Sick" http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/issues/lt2011/lt02/lt_2011_02_24_31.pdf http://www.labtimes.org/labtimes/issues/lt2011/lt02/lt_2011_... Essentially, it’s the publication process. It has become a system of collecting counters for particular purposes – to get grants, to get tenure, etc. – rather than to communicate and illuminate findings to other people. The literature is, by and large, unreadable. It’s all written in a kind of code, with inappropriate data in large amounts, and the storyline is becoming increasingly orchestrated by this need to publish. We all know it. We all suffer from it. I think the changes to the scientific enterprise have been inexorable and progressive. The deterioration has been so steady that people don’t really realise how much things have changed.
  - wwwwrrrr 15y ago
    > The literature is, by and large, unreadable. It’s all written in a kind of code, with inappropriate data in large amounts, Seriously? I mean, Newton's Principia is written in Latin.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    A problem for many universities is that they don't even really succeed at it. This grant-sucking infrastructure isn't free, and apart from the direct costs of grantwriting / paperwork / etc., universities sometimes even undertake major expenditures with a view towards making themselves more attractive to grants, e.g. tailoring construction or hiring towards grant opportunities, flying people around and hosting events to oil the gears of potential partnerships, etc., etc. The top research universities pull in enough grants to make that all worth it, but many smaller universities don't ever come out ahead, though they like to pretend they do. There are small schools where they consider it a huge success that they land a $1m NSF grant now and then, but they are almost certainly spending more than $1m every few years to do so. In addition, even when you do land grants, co-financing is becoming more popular, so the university ends up having to kick in even more money in the successful case. A bit more on that from Georgia Tech's former CS dean: http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-sure-fire-ways-to-lose-money-on-research/ http://innovate-wwc.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-su...
- regehr 15y ago
  I always find "50% F&A" to be misleading. You add 50% to the grant budget to figure out how much money to ask for. Therefore, the actual amount of the grant that goes to overhead is more like 33%.
- steve-howard 15y ago
  From my understanding working in research (I don't touch grants, though), universities are not supposed to take any administrative fees for small expenditures (I believe my PI said it was $5k here, but it was a while ago that I heard this).
  - _delirium 15y ago
    It's actually the opposite, I believe--- equipment expenditures over $5k with expected lifetime >1 yr are considered capital purchases improving the university's facilities, rather than expenses, and not subject to overhead. It leads to weird situations where it's actually cheaper to load up your $4k server with $1k in crap you don't really need, to turn it into a capital improvement.
    - steve-howard 15y ago
      That's actually very curious, because the stories I've heard are exactly the opposite of that -- building $100k servers $1k at a time, etc. Perhaps every school skims off the top in a different way.
davidblair 15y ago
I have seen substantial Federal grants that restrict overhead a university can take to ~20%. These grants were tied to the PI and the money follows the PI if they change institutions.