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But it's even worse than that. Since universities are funded by the grant overhead (30-40% of the grant goes directly to the university, sometimes higher), the

But it's even worse than that. Since universities are funded by the grant overhead (30-40% of the grant goes directly to the university, sometimes higher), there's an incentive for "expensive" research. Why fund a theorist who needs a pencil and paper and maybe a fancy computer when you can fund an expensive lab full of state of the art lasers and optics or any other type of expensive technology. Do you want to come up with a ground breaking theory or do you want to turn the crank and measure some value a little more precise? There is value in both, but the universities really bias towards the latter because it's more expensive and needs more and bigger grants to get done.

ska 3y ago
Not really, at least in my experience. Overhead is fungible, so they get roughly the same cut of everything that comes in (to a first approximation). That means the support the institution will put behind a shoot-for-the-stars research centre grant is way different than what a theorist looking to pay for 5 grad students will get, but the institution is happy to proportionately support that as well. Especially R1's that are trying to play the prestige game aggressively, they'll push for a "world class" faculty page pretty much across the board. But they don't all get the same offices. Institutions' reliance on overhead to fund operations varies wildly as well, which makes the calculus different.
- ska 3y ago
  Oh I should note that capex and opex aren't treated the same in grant-land either, and funding agencies can put limits on university overhead for infrastructure grants etc. so that's not all apples to apples. The benefit to the university for soft salary or funding grad students etc. in both scenarios is the same, but getting money for a new computer cluster or a synchrotron or whatever isn't, typically.
queuebert 3y ago
The overhead rate for R1s is closer to 70%.
cycomanic 3y ago
It's more likely the other way around. For most grants I'm aware off universities can't charge overheads on equipment so a theoretician with lots of phd students brings in more overhead than an experimentalist that needs lots of equipment. Obviously the reality is much more complex, depending on country it's easier or more difficult to get funding as a theoretician (in the US it's supposedly much more difficult), theory groups are typically smaller, experimental research often results in more publicity... And all this really depends on the field. I think pitting theory against experiments does not address the issues. The big problem IMO is that the funding systems are so competitive and at the same time (initially) have a large luck component, that it incentives short term, low risk research.
Fomite 3y ago
My department is actively pivoting away from more expensive researchers towards theorists, implementation scientists, etc. Partially because all that expensive lab equipment means expensive startup packages. And expensive grants get reviewed in the context of being expensive.

ska 3y ago

Not really, at least in my experience. Overhead is fungible, so they get roughly the same cut of everything that comes in (to a first approximation). That means the support the institution will put behind a shoot-for-the-stars research centre grant is way different than what a theorist looking to pay for 5 grad students will get, but the institution is happy to proportionately support that as well. Especially R1's that are trying to play the prestige game aggressively, they'll push for a "world class" faculty page pretty much across the board. But they don't all get the same offices. Institutions' reliance on overhead to fund operations varies wildly as well, which makes the calculus different.

ska 3y ago
Oh I should note that capex and opex aren't treated the same in grant-land either, and funding agencies can put limits on university overhead for infrastructure grants etc. so that's not all apples to apples. The benefit to the university for soft salary or funding grad students etc. in both scenarios is the same, but getting money for a new computer cluster or a synchrotron or whatever isn't, typically.

queuebert 3y ago

The overhead rate for R1s is closer to 70%.

cycomanic 3y ago

It's more likely the other way around. For most grants I'm aware off universities can't charge overheads on equipment so a theoretician with lots of phd students brings in more overhead than an experimentalist that needs lots of equipment. Obviously the reality is much more complex, depending on country it's easier or more difficult to get funding as a theoretician (in the US it's supposedly much more difficult), theory groups are typically smaller, experimental research often results in more publicity... And all this really depends on the field. I think pitting theory against experiments does not address the issues. The big problem IMO is that the funding systems are so competitive and at the same time (initially) have a large luck component, that it incentives short term, low risk research.

Fomite 3y ago

My department is actively pivoting away from more expensive researchers towards theorists, implementation scientists, etc. Partially because all that expensive lab equipment means expensive startup packages. And expensive grants get reviewed in the context of being expensive.