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If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion: > A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost rei

If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion: > A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build world-class labs for cutting-edge research that were the envy of the world. Scientists flocked to the U.S. causing other countries to complain of a “brain drain.” and: > Today, China’s leadership has spent the last three decades investing heavily to surpass the U.S. in science and technology. In my field (a type of radar related research) in which I've worked for almost 30 yrs, papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. The Biden administration seemed to recognize this issue and put a lot of money toward this field. All that money and more is going away. I'm hoping to stay funded through the midterms on other projects (and that there are midterms), and hoping that the US can get back on track (the one that actually made it 'great', at least by the metrics in the post.

rayiner 1y ago
[flagged]
- arunabha 1y ago
  The GP post explicitly mentioned the growth of Chinese research capability that they directly saw. It's no secret that China has explicitly and deliberately invested in ramping up R&D. Also, requiring absolute proof in a system as vast and complex as R&D at the scale of the US leads to complete paralysis. It's a bit like cutting off your fingers because you want to lose weight.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    It would be interesting to see some discussion of how the Chinese research funding system actually works.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    That makes the opposite point since Chinese indirect costs are 5-25%. e.g. this grant is at 25% https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab434/info94303.htm https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab434/info94303.htm
- nxobject 1y ago
  What “outcome” would meet your standards for justifiable research spending? Is a 26% cap on the percentage that indirects can go to all administration - all staff apart from researcher hours directly dedicated to the project - a sufficient “outcome”?
  - rayiner 1y ago
    I’m talking about the part where he talks about the government funding indirects specifically, not the research funding in general. > A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system
- natebc 1y ago
  Without the university infrastructure around these Labs they'd EACH have to each employ their own construction, maintenance, housekeeping, legal, bookkeeping, HR, IT, compliance (and more) staff. There will still be some research done if the cuts to the indirects survive the courts but it will be drastically reduced in scope as the labs staff will have to cover any functions no longer provided by the host university. And you probably know this but this money isn't getting stuffed in to university presidents pockets or anything. It's paying (some) of the salaries of ordinary people working at jobs that pay about 20% (or more) less than they'd make in the private sector.
- Fomite 1y ago
  Things indirect cost reimbursements fund at my institution: - The research animal facilities - HPC staff, upgrades, etc. - Our BSL-3 facilities (the only ones for a long way) - Various and sundry research cores - New faculty startup funds Those are all pretty tightly correlated with success, and very difficult to support via single grants.
bilbo0s 1y ago
I don't know that I'd rely too heavily on midterms in 26. Gerrymandering and all that.
- sirbutters 1y ago
  I don't know why this is getting shadowed. You're absolutely right. Gerrymandering is a threat.
  - Redoubts 1y ago
    Illinois and Maryland look pretty secure on that front. Perhaps the Democrats can try to gerrymander NYS again, without getting slapped down by the courts
- r00fus 1y ago
  Gerrymandering? More like scrubbing the voters of the right to vote (SAVE act) or voter intimidation (all those militias standing ready!)
fallingknife 1y ago
I don't see any reason why specifically "indirect cost reimbursement" is anything to do with this. Sure, individually billing labs is administrative burden, but it's a tiny drop in the ocean of inane bureaucracy that university researchers already have to deal with today. And maybe if we got rid of the blanket overhead percentage, it would put pressure on universities to cut a lot of the crap. Researchers are much more likely to push back when they see a line item for how much that nonsensical bureaucracy is costing them.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  This is a fundamental misunderstanding of research funding, and quite frankly repeating it without even basic research borders on negligence. Universities use indirect funds for maintaining facilities, the shared equipment, bulk purchases of materials, staff for things like cleaning and disposal. It is pivotal that these funds are available in the right amount or research physically cannot happen despite being "indirect" (due merely to the legal definition of the word). And these rates are aggressively negotiated beforehand. Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. If you want to stop the science, you gut the financial viability of research.
  - fallingknife 1y ago
    I do not believe that sharing costs of facilities and equipment is so difficult that research universities can't handle it while every condo association in the US somehow manages to pull it off. I do not believe you that this is aggressively negotiated down by the government because private research grants come with much lower indirect costs percentages. > Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. Well I guess we just have to pay for endlessly expanding bureaucracy then, because apparently expecting research universities to be somewhat efficient with their resources is "absurd." > If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait...
csa 1y ago
> papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. Not germane to the main thread, but are the “new idea” papers written by Chinese authors mostly published in English, Chinese, or both? If Chinese is part or all of the output, what method do non-Chinese reading researchers use to access the contents (e.g., AI translations, abstract journals, etc.)? As a language nerd, I’m curious. I know that French, German, and Russian used to be (and sometimes still are) required languages for some graduate students so that they could access research texts in the original language. I wonder if that’s happening with Chinese now.
- blululu 1y ago
  In my experience Chinese academics are far more bilingual than western ones. I think that for Chinese academics the English publications are generally of a higher quality and more prestigious, but I’m sure that too will change over time. I can definitely say that Chinese publications have gotten much better in terms of quality over the last 20 years and there are now a lot of results worth translating. At this point ML translation is sufficiently good that it does not make a material difference for the readership. This means that there is not a lot of political advantage around having a more dominant language. The bigger point is about the relative strength of the underlying research communities and this is definitely moving in favor of the Chinese.
  - xeonmc 1y ago
    Chinese language publications may eventually serve the role of rapid communications, but for important results it will always be in English due to their ”trophy culture”.
    - blululu 1y ago
      That makes sense. The same trend is already happening in the west with Arxiv and Bioarxiv. Neither is as prestigious for the purpose of a lot of facility politics/rankings but in an active field both are more meaningful markers of the cutting edge than prestige publications like nature. I imagine these journals will retain their function as markers of prestige even as most of the community’s research output happens in more informal channels.

rayiner 1y ago

[flagged]

arunabha 1y ago
The GP post explicitly mentioned the growth of Chinese research capability that they directly saw. It's no secret that China has explicitly and deliberately invested in ramping up R&D. Also, requiring absolute proof in a system as vast and complex as R&D at the scale of the US leads to complete paralysis. It's a bit like cutting off your fingers because you want to lose weight.
- pjc50 1y ago
  It would be interesting to see some discussion of how the Chinese research funding system actually works.
- renewiltord 1y ago
  That makes the opposite point since Chinese indirect costs are 5-25%. e.g. this grant is at 25% https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab434/info94303.htm https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab434/info94303.htm
nxobject 1y ago
What “outcome” would meet your standards for justifiable research spending? Is a 26% cap on the percentage that indirects can go to all administration - all staff apart from researcher hours directly dedicated to the project - a sufficient “outcome”?
- rayiner 1y ago
  I’m talking about the part where he talks about the government funding indirects specifically, not the research funding in general. > A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system
natebc 1y ago
Without the university infrastructure around these Labs they'd EACH have to each employ their own construction, maintenance, housekeeping, legal, bookkeeping, HR, IT, compliance (and more) staff. There will still be some research done if the cuts to the indirects survive the courts but it will be drastically reduced in scope as the labs staff will have to cover any functions no longer provided by the host university. And you probably know this but this money isn't getting stuffed in to university presidents pockets or anything. It's paying (some) of the salaries of ordinary people working at jobs that pay about 20% (or more) less than they'd make in the private sector.
Fomite 1y ago
Things indirect cost reimbursements fund at my institution: - The research animal facilities - HPC staff, upgrades, etc. - Our BSL-3 facilities (the only ones for a long way) - Various and sundry research cores - New faculty startup funds Those are all pretty tightly correlated with success, and very difficult to support via single grants.

bilbo0s 1y ago

I don't know that I'd rely too heavily on midterms in 26. Gerrymandering and all that.

sirbutters 1y ago
I don't know why this is getting shadowed. You're absolutely right. Gerrymandering is a threat.
- Redoubts 1y ago
  Illinois and Maryland look pretty secure on that front. Perhaps the Democrats can try to gerrymander NYS again, without getting slapped down by the courts
r00fus 1y ago
Gerrymandering? More like scrubbing the voters of the right to vote (SAVE act) or voter intimidation (all those militias standing ready!)

fallingknife 1y ago

I don't see any reason why specifically "indirect cost reimbursement" is anything to do with this. Sure, individually billing labs is administrative burden, but it's a tiny drop in the ocean of inane bureaucracy that university researchers already have to deal with today. And maybe if we got rid of the blanket overhead percentage, it would put pressure on universities to cut a lot of the crap. Researchers are much more likely to push back when they see a line item for how much that nonsensical bureaucracy is costing them.

Tadpole9181 1y ago
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of research funding, and quite frankly repeating it without even basic research borders on negligence. Universities use indirect funds for maintaining facilities, the shared equipment, bulk purchases of materials, staff for things like cleaning and disposal. It is pivotal that these funds are available in the right amount or research physically cannot happen despite being "indirect" (due merely to the legal definition of the word). And these rates are aggressively negotiated beforehand. Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. If you want to stop the science, you gut the financial viability of research.
- fallingknife 1y ago
  I do not believe that sharing costs of facilities and equipment is so difficult that research universities can't handle it while every condo association in the US somehow manages to pull it off. I do not believe you that this is aggressively negotiated down by the government because private research grants come with much lower indirect costs percentages. > Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. Well I guess we just have to pay for endlessly expanding bureaucracy then, because apparently expecting research universities to be somewhat efficient with their resources is "absurd." > If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. Good idea! Maybe we can limit how much they can spend on overhead. Oh, wait...

csa 1y ago

> papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. Not germane to the main thread, but are the “new idea” papers written by Chinese authors mostly published in English, Chinese, or both? If Chinese is part or all of the output, what method do non-Chinese reading researchers use to access the contents (e.g., AI translations, abstract journals, etc.)? As a language nerd, I’m curious. I know that French, German, and Russian used to be (and sometimes still are) required languages for some graduate students so that they could access research texts in the original language. I wonder if that’s happening with Chinese now.

blululu 1y ago
In my experience Chinese academics are far more bilingual than western ones. I think that for Chinese academics the English publications are generally of a higher quality and more prestigious, but I’m sure that too will change over time. I can definitely say that Chinese publications have gotten much better in terms of quality over the last 20 years and there are now a lot of results worth translating. At this point ML translation is sufficiently good that it does not make a material difference for the readership. This means that there is not a lot of political advantage around having a more dominant language. The bigger point is about the relative strength of the underlying research communities and this is definitely moving in favor of the Chinese.
- xeonmc 1y ago
  Chinese language publications may eventually serve the role of rapid communications, but for important results it will always be in English due to their ”trophy culture”.
  - blululu 1y ago
    That makes sense. The same trend is already happening in the west with Arxiv and Bioarxiv. Neither is as prestigious for the purpose of a lot of facility politics/rankings but in an active field both are more meaningful markers of the cutting edge than prestige publications like nature. I imagine these journals will retain their function as markers of prestige even as most of the community’s research output happens in more informal channels.