3 ms·

This is somewhat disingenuous. Something like half of the grant is handed over to the University as overhead. Much of that is legit to cover things like labs

by treis 1y ago

This is somewhat disingenuous. Something like half of the grant is handed over to the University as overhead. Much of that is legit to cover things like labs but a lot of it goes to a cover a massive amount of administrative bloat. Also, nobody really objects to the research that leads directly to stuff private industry can use. That's not what people want to cut.

ss2003 1y ago
That is disingenuous. People absolutely want to cut all University research without regard as to what it for.
xracy 1y ago
The overhead is what makes research possible. How do you do research without a lab, or a building?
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  You include expenses for lab and facilities in your grant budget rather than as "overhead" ?
  - xracy 1y ago
    That's not how facilities work or are accounted for. Facilities are common to all of the university. It doesn't make sense to force this individual requirement on each grant when the University has hundreds of ways it is using a given building or lab equipment.
    - drjasonharrison 1y ago
      Are you thinking "facility" == "building" and "rooms"? The lab equipment is constantly evolving, needs repair, maintenance, on-site training. Perhaps you are thinking of a lab bench that is going to last the lifetime of the building and I am thinking of a computer server, 3D scanner, 3D printer, MRI machine (small lab system), etc. My son has taken second year organic chemistry classes that had more computer hardware and software than I ever had in my electrical engineering/computer science classes in the early 1990s. The software might be open source, or might have ongoing software license fees. While those specific teaching labs should be paid for through tuition, imagine similar or more advanced versions in the research labs.
      - xracy 1y ago
        facility is intentionally broad. I think the point being that all of those things are being provided by the University to many researchers/students/professors. The point is that separating out what gets allocated where, when there are so many things that might have multiple uses, is a pointless task if you're trying to reverse engineer how much money should be given to individual research teams to account for it. The University already has the systems in place to manage the overhead. There's no reason to do more work to try and get to the same result.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      This is what accountants do. They match expenses to income. It shouldn't be that hard. J. Random Professor is using lab #12 for his group. Apportion the overall building expenses by square foot to his grant budgets, or something along those lines.
- treis 1y ago
  >Much of that is legit to cover things like labs
eastbound 1y ago
[flagged]
- SpaceNugget 1y ago
  Just to be clear, you are aware that universities are composed of more than just the sciences right? Do you also think that biology professors should strike and protest because the first year painting classes don't utilize the scientific method? The fact that gender studies is a liberal arts degree kind of gives away that it's not pretending to be a science.
drjasonharrison 1y ago
Antedote: When I was a PhD student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Computer Science research grant proposals included budgets for overhead. This was often, if I recall correctly, 10% of the overall equipment and salary budget. This was deemed a tax collected by the department and used to: - pay IT staff salaries - pay IT hardware and service costs (storage, communication) - etc Other costs on the research grant would include: - hardware purchases: personal computers, specialized equipment, compute and storage servers - graduate student and postdoctoral student salaries - travel costs to conferences for students - consumables (if any) Again, in Canada, there are various types of research grants. For example, the "Research Tools and Instruments grants program" will pay the entire cost of the equipment. This includes: shipping, customs fees, warranty/service contracts, software licensing, on-site training. https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecherche/Instructions-Instructions/RTIInstruct-SOIInstruct_eng.asp https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecher... Note that travel, salary and benefits, consumables, renovations, lab infrastructure are not allowed. For other types of grants the institution's "tax rate" is usually specified by the Department of Research, and can be as high as 25%. UBC hides it's rates behind a portal, but Simon Fraser University has a description of them: https://www.sfu.ca/research/researcher-resources/fund-my-research/proposal-development/overhead.html https://www.sfu.ca/research/researcher-resources/fund-my-res... I won't speak to the amount of "administrative bloat" that universities have experienced during my two decades post graduation. While it exists, a tax rate of 25% seems quite reasonable when you consider the overall costs of research at a university compared to equivalent commercial office/lab space.
- nkurz 1y ago
  The numbers you are suggesting do indeed seem reasonable, and if those were the overheads being used, they would probably be justified. But I think current overheads are often much higher. Here for example is a recent article saying that the proposed 15% cap on overhead for NIH grants would be disastrous for universities like Harvard that currently have a 69% negotiated overhead rate: https://deliprao.substack.com/p/understanding-nihs-15-overhead-cap https://deliprao.substack.com/p/understanding-nihs-15-overhe... To be fair, I'm not sure if that author is using the same definition that you are. In the article, they clarify that a 69% rate means that a $1,000,000 grant has an extra $690,000 paid to Harvard. Still, the idea that the rates should be the same for all institutions and should be closer to the numbers you remember certainly seems worth considering.
mattlutze 1y ago
>Also, nobody really objects to the research that leads directly to stuff private industry can use. That's not what people want to cut. That's what they're cutting.

by treis 1y ago

ss2003 1y ago

That is disingenuous. People absolutely want to cut all University research without regard as to what it for.

xracy 1y ago

The overhead is what makes research possible. How do you do research without a lab, or a building?

SoftTalker 1y ago
You include expenses for lab and facilities in your grant budget rather than as "overhead" ?
- xracy 1y ago
  That's not how facilities work or are accounted for. Facilities are common to all of the university. It doesn't make sense to force this individual requirement on each grant when the University has hundreds of ways it is using a given building or lab equipment.
  - drjasonharrison 1y ago
    Are you thinking "facility" == "building" and "rooms"? The lab equipment is constantly evolving, needs repair, maintenance, on-site training. Perhaps you are thinking of a lab bench that is going to last the lifetime of the building and I am thinking of a computer server, 3D scanner, 3D printer, MRI machine (small lab system), etc. My son has taken second year organic chemistry classes that had more computer hardware and software than I ever had in my electrical engineering/computer science classes in the early 1990s. The software might be open source, or might have ongoing software license fees. While those specific teaching labs should be paid for through tuition, imagine similar or more advanced versions in the research labs.
    - xracy 1y ago
      facility is intentionally broad. I think the point being that all of those things are being provided by the University to many researchers/students/professors. The point is that separating out what gets allocated where, when there are so many things that might have multiple uses, is a pointless task if you're trying to reverse engineer how much money should be given to individual research teams to account for it. The University already has the systems in place to manage the overhead. There's no reason to do more work to try and get to the same result.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    This is what accountants do. They match expenses to income. It shouldn't be that hard. J. Random Professor is using lab #12 for his group. Apportion the overall building expenses by square foot to his grant budgets, or something along those lines.
treis 1y ago
>Much of that is legit to cover things like labs

eastbound 1y ago

[flagged]

SpaceNugget 1y ago
Just to be clear, you are aware that universities are composed of more than just the sciences right? Do you also think that biology professors should strike and protest because the first year painting classes don't utilize the scientific method? The fact that gender studies is a liberal arts degree kind of gives away that it's not pretending to be a science.

drjasonharrison 1y ago

Antedote: When I was a PhD student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Computer Science research grant proposals included budgets for overhead. This was often, if I recall correctly, 10% of the overall equipment and salary budget. This was deemed a tax collected by the department and used to: - pay IT staff salaries - pay IT hardware and service costs (storage, communication) - etc Other costs on the research grant would include: - hardware purchases: personal computers, specialized equipment, compute and storage servers - graduate student and postdoctoral student salaries - travel costs to conferences for students - consumables (if any) Again, in Canada, there are various types of research grants. For example, the "Research Tools and Instruments grants program" will pay the entire cost of the equipment. This includes: shipping, customs fees, warranty/service contracts, software licensing, on-site training. https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecherche/Instructions-Instructions/RTIInstruct-SOIInstruct_eng.asp https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecher... Note that travel, salary and benefits, consumables, renovations, lab infrastructure are not allowed. For other types of grants the institution's "tax rate" is usually specified by the Department of Research, and can be as high as 25%. UBC hides it's rates behind a portal, but Simon Fraser University has a description of them: https://www.sfu.ca/research/researcher-resources/fund-my-research/proposal-development/overhead.html https://www.sfu.ca/research/researcher-resources/fund-my-res... I won't speak to the amount of "administrative bloat" that universities have experienced during my two decades post graduation. While it exists, a tax rate of 25% seems quite reasonable when you consider the overall costs of research at a university compared to equivalent commercial office/lab space.

nkurz 1y ago
The numbers you are suggesting do indeed seem reasonable, and if those were the overheads being used, they would probably be justified. But I think current overheads are often much higher. Here for example is a recent article saying that the proposed 15% cap on overhead for NIH grants would be disastrous for universities like Harvard that currently have a 69% negotiated overhead rate: https://deliprao.substack.com/p/understanding-nihs-15-overhead-cap https://deliprao.substack.com/p/understanding-nihs-15-overhe... To be fair, I'm not sure if that author is using the same definition that you are. In the article, they clarify that a 69% rate means that a $1,000,000 grant has an extra $690,000 paid to Harvard. Still, the idea that the rates should be the same for all institutions and should be closer to the numbers you remember certainly seems worth considering.

mattlutze 1y ago

>Also, nobody really objects to the research that leads directly to stuff private industry can use. That's not what people want to cut. That's what they're cutting.