4 ms·

Besides the issue of his seemingly trivial prosecution that others posters have noted, I also wonder what he spent the grant on, or planned to?

by a_olt 13y ago

tensor 13y ago
Unless science funding is different in the US, and as far as I know it is not, he cannot spend it on personal things. The worst he could do is buy himself some computers "for research" then use them for only for personal use, or give them to family. Purchases still need to go through the university. Sometimes grant money even has restrictions on this, e.g. it can be used only for students. He most likely did this to get more resources for research work. E.g. it was motivated by a desire for fame and status.
- Fomite 13y ago
  Yeah, this is likely much less about "stuff" as much as keeping an active lab going, securing tenure, bright, big publications etc.
- ssmoot 13y ago
  Reading the thread sibling responses, it seems plausible you could get around that? (I'm just a lay-person.) I mean, you pay the University $XX for "misc facilities and support". That goes into the school's fund. Later, the Dean gives you a "completely unrelated and coincidental" Xmas bonus of $X. Also out of the school's fund. It's not grant money at that point. It's from a general discretionary fund that just happens to get deposits for services provided to grant based science. So... money laundering basically I guess?
discardorama 13y ago
Having worked at a university research lab in the US, let me tell you that the situation isn't as clean as most people believe. When you apply for a grant, you add an "overhead" amount, which is specified as a percentage of the grant. A typical number is 50%: if you want $X for your lab, you apply for $X * 1.5, with the reasoning that the extra 50% is for the university to provide you with facilities, tuition wavers for your students, computer support, etc. So far, so good. What many people don't know is that of that 50% that the university collects, about 20% (actual figure can vary a lot) comes to the Dean's slush fund (so, about 10% of the grant itself using above figures). The Dean can use this money to give young faculty starter research grants; but more often, the Dean can use this money to dole out discretionary bonuses (which can be very large) to the top research faculty. So if the grantee gets a $19MM grant, you can bet that he's making 100s of 1000s of dollars in bonuses from the Dean. Anyways, the system is quite messy if you take a closer look...
- chockablock 13y ago
  <citation needed>. I've never heard of this kind of kickback scheme, in >10 years at several large research universities in the US.
  - discardorama 13y ago
    Citation?! I'm telling you from experience. The best known example I can give you is: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Stanford_Research_Scandal http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Stanford_Resear... Here's a recent article about universities resisting efforts to curb overheads: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-and-other-research-schools-thwart-obama-administration-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Nk5PT0Mc8MQZihFVNs5gNK/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mi...
  - frozenport 13y ago
    Were I work you can get a bonus on the order of 40K for getting a grant of about 2M.

Besides the issue of his seemingly trivial prosecution that others posters have noted, I also wonder what he spent the grant on, or planned to?

by a_olt 13y ago

Besides the issue of his seemingly trivial prosecution that others posters have noted, I also wonder what he spent the grant on, or planned to?

tensor 13y ago

Unless science funding is different in the US, and as far as I know it is not, he cannot spend it on personal things. The worst he could do is buy himself some computers "for research" then use them for only for personal use, or give them to family. Purchases still need to go through the university. Sometimes grant money even has restrictions on this, e.g. it can be used only for students. He most likely did this to get more resources for research work. E.g. it was motivated by a desire for fame and status.

Fomite 13y ago
Yeah, this is likely much less about "stuff" as much as keeping an active lab going, securing tenure, bright, big publications etc.
ssmoot 13y ago
Reading the thread sibling responses, it seems plausible you could get around that? (I'm just a lay-person.) I mean, you pay the University $XX for "misc facilities and support". That goes into the school's fund. Later, the Dean gives you a "completely unrelated and coincidental" Xmas bonus of $X. Also out of the school's fund. It's not grant money at that point. It's from a general discretionary fund that just happens to get deposits for services provided to grant based science. So... money laundering basically I guess?

discardorama 13y ago

Having worked at a university research lab in the US, let me tell you that the situation isn't as clean as most people believe. When you apply for a grant, you add an "overhead" amount, which is specified as a percentage of the grant. A typical number is 50%: if you want $X for your lab, you apply for $X * 1.5, with the reasoning that the extra 50% is for the university to provide you with facilities, tuition wavers for your students, computer support, etc. So far, so good. What many people don't know is that of that 50% that the university collects, about 20% (actual figure can vary a lot) comes to the Dean's slush fund (so, about 10% of the grant itself using above figures). The Dean can use this money to give young faculty starter research grants; but more often, the Dean can use this money to dole out discretionary bonuses (which can be very large) to the top research faculty. So if the grantee gets a $19MM grant, you can bet that he's making 100s of 1000s of dollars in bonuses from the Dean. Anyways, the system is quite messy if you take a closer look...

chockablock 13y ago
<citation needed>. I've never heard of this kind of kickback scheme, in >10 years at several large research universities in the US.
- discardorama 13y ago
  Citation?! I'm telling you from experience. The best known example I can give you is: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Stanford_Research_Scandal http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Stanford_Resear... Here's a recent article about universities resisting efforts to curb overheads: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-and-other-research-schools-thwart-obama-administration-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Nk5PT0Mc8MQZihFVNs5gNK/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mi...
- frozenport 13y ago
  Were I work you can get a bonus on the order of 40K for getting a grant of about 2M.