5 ms·

I'd be interested to see the data for unis showing their costs are lower. I doubt it. For private companies, and an SBIR ,you have to establish an indirect rat

I'd be interested to see the data for unis showing their costs are lower. I doubt it. For private companies, and an SBIR ,you have to establish an indirect rate based on your actual costs. The rate is the ratio of all indirect costs for the company vs the direct costs for the project (salary times the % of the person's time). It's a bit of work the first time you have to do it. I'd be surprised if the NSF lets the uni just put whatever they want down and it isn't based on submitted budget data.

dn3500 4y ago
At the US university where I worked the indirect rate for federal grants was the same across the entire university, and I think it was slightly more than the 53% OP pays. I don't know where the number came from. Most of our industrial grants had language in the contract that said they would pay whatever rate the government was paying.
Fomite 4y ago
No data for it, but several times we've told companies if they think it can be done cheaper elsewhere for the same quality that they should do that. We've had no takers. Heck, one of my major sources of consulting income is "Checking the math a private industry research group did."