5 ms·
They'd probably spend twice that much that way. The academic system will siphon off a ton of money before it gets to the actual scientists.
by javert 11y ago
They'd probably spend twice that much that way. The academic system will siphon off a ton of money before it gets to the actual scientists.
- selimthegrim 11y agoChiming in to confirm this. I applied for a small (<$5000) travel grant from my state to travel to a national lab for research and the university sends me an approval form with an additional 50% markup off the top as standard operating procedure (i.e. if i ask for $3000 they'd additionally add in a request for $1500 overhead on top)
- cmsmith 11y agoFYI, and not making any judgement, but this is how they pay for office space and for research that is too esoteric/risky to get external funding.
- jessaustin 11y agoDoes the esoteric research not go through the grant application process?
- javert 11y agoAs far as I've seen, in CS academia, grad students are almost always funded through a government grant (or something similar). However, salary for tenured professors is guaranteed regardless. So, if you are a tenured professor, you can choose to do esoteric research that will not get a government grant, but you won't have any grad students. It actually works out because the less practical, more theory oriented profs do not really need grad students. Whereas the more practical, application oriented profs need grad students to do all the work and they end up "setting up shop" like little companies---and get grants to pay for the students (mainly tuition, also a small stipend). Not that I'm defending it, but it has a kind of internally consistent logic.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoNo, research that's too esoteric or risky to get external funding just gets the researcher fired.