Reforming overhead payments, somehow, is probably a good idea.
Altering the deal on existing contracts without notice is very much NOT a good idea. That they're attempting to do so is a pretty good sign of bad faith.
One of the main issues with overhead on grants is that it has nothing to do with overhead on the research itself. It’s instead a tax that a university applies to money that researchers bring in, that they use as general revenue to fund, for lack of a better term, bullshit including hiring more admin instead of professors.
A $8M grant doesn’t cost a university any more than a $1M grant for university admin in terms of “indirect costs”. The fact that they think they’re entitled to several million of it to waste on things that shouldn’t be coming from taxpayer funded NIH grant money is obscene.
> A $8M grant doesn’t cost a university any more than a $1M grant for university admin in terms of “indirect costs”. The fact that they think they’re entitled to several million of it to waste on things that shouldn’t be coming from taxpayer funded NIH grant money is obscene.
Sure it does. An 8M grant is going to have roughly 8X more researchers working under it than a 1M grant. Each of those researchers needs space, parking, IT support, HR supports, etc. There are some economies of scale, but the idea that you could increase the staffing of a business by 8x and not have to hire more HR and accounting people is silly.
You don't seem to have any experience with the subject. The "overhead" in question is, for example, the person who keeps clean glassware in inventory for chemistry, or the veterinarian for animal subjects, or the ethics board.
> Many who advocate for cutting NIH’s indirect cost rate have long argued that universities are willing to accept lower rates from philanthropic foundations. Today’s NIH notice, for example, notes the Gates Foundation limits indirect costs to 10%, while the Packard Foundation sets the ceiling at 15%. But such reasoning is based on “perverse logic,” Corey says, because foundations use their funds to increase the productivity of research infrastructure already paid for by the federal government. And universities say they are often willing to accept foundation grants that carry low overhead rates because those grants amount to a relatively small fraction of their funding.
This detail is worth highlighting. NIH has traditionally borne the bulk of indirect costs, allowing non-profits to issue grants with low indirect costs. Slashing NIH’s indirect costs will force research institutions to seek funds elsewhere or become financially unviable.
They could simply stop hiring more admin and building offices for them to work in at a rate that far exceeds student population growth or hiring of professors.
Not a compelling argument. Due to federal and state policies there is a great deal bureaucracy involved in running a research project. Too much, but mandated largely by the federal government. Many institutions have to supplement even NIH grants with institutional funds. I do.
NIH does not pay full salary support for many junior and senior scientists even if they work 100% on NIH projects.
That is indirect support by the institution to NIH.
15% will kill academic medical research — the fountain head of a much or most progress we have made in preventing and treating a wide range of diseases.
Additionally, the base of the indirect calculation differs between grantors. NIH is MTDC (Modified Total Direct Costs) on top; Gates is TDC (Total Direct Costs) with their own schedule of allowable indirect costs. You have to do a line by line comparison to really evaluate the difference.
I was first surprised that NIH put indirects on top and wondered if they were done NSF style if that would help control costs more.
The original grant notice is a good thing to read. They properly justify the cuts, and I think it's something that a lot of people would agree with - why is up to 70% of grant money being sent to "administration and overhead" at giant private universities? My small LLC is currently applying for an SBIR grant, and we were capped to 40% unless we provided a big justification - which we can't, because we're too small to justify anything like that. Meanwhile, big organizations and universities can throw their weight around and bully the government into handing them more money to do who-knows-what with. Maybe build a nice shiny new sports center with.
This is a good reform - even though it will cost my LLC about $75k in indirect costs that we might have been able to bill (40% -> 15%). I'm more confident in my ability to reduce our indirect costs and compete on a level-playing field with everyone else.
Just so everyone reading this is clear, it’s not 70% of grant money, it’s an extra 70% on top of the direct costs (41% of the total awarded). A more typical number for a large state university would be somewhere around 55%, or around 35% of the total awarded funds.
Also, indirect costs are not going to building sports centers. Funding agencies and the government audit universities in detail to make sure that the money is being spent only on research activities, down to calculating the amount of square footage per building that is being used exclusively for research, as opposed to instruction or clinical work. They have absolutely come after people and institutions, and successfully obtained multimillion dollar settlements, for using federal money to cover unrelated expenses. If NIH indirects were found to be going towards something like building a rec center or a facility for college athletes, it would be actual fraud and a national scandal, potentially on the “congressional inquiry” level.
no fan if this gov but I always found the university cut if grants designated for specific things too high. In many US universtiies the professors don't get a sallary if they don't bring in grants. And with such a big overhead universiteis sure want it this way. In some Euro universiteis like ETH Zurich or Max Planck instituties the prof's get a pretty good baseline funding from the institutional funding (given top down from taxes) and inside these kind of instutitions the professors have so much more freedom to think about what experiment is the most informative.
Also a side note while bot of the named universities are top 10 world wide for research output they don't spend millions on landscaping or sports facilities most things are kinda old but functional.
Swiss universities aren’t shabby, they were building a Swiss cheese building at EPFL when I was there. But ya, landscaping was mostly done by goats (really!). American universities are pretty luxurious in comparison.
Schools are going to follow the same playbook they've been following since 2008 as state and federal funding has dried up.
They'll lean on international students first like they have for decades, but those numbers are going to be down. They'll follow that by leaning on undergrads, but those numbers are shrinking too because of cultural and demographic shifts. Then they'll cut graduate funding (again) to try and get more blood from the stone. Then they'll try cutting the "extraneous" departments that don't bring in money or grants (read: everything except engineering, medicine, law, and football) again. Then they'll cut the departments that do bring in money. Then they'll do the work to shoulder the costs directly.
If you want reform, cutting funding doesn't work. It hollows out the entire institution before it even starts addressing the administrative issues. Reform needs to come from a different direction.
The reputational damage to US scientific prestige is incalculable. And all for amounts that are tiny slivers of the federal budget for research that benefits potentially everyone.
We have a saying in Japan that goes: "Even dust piled up will make a mountain."
Considering the monies concerned here are also tax dollars, I am wholly unsympathetic to the actual monetary sums. They could be 1 cent and my feelings on this matter wouldn't change: Audit every single line item and slash anything wasteful.
Collateral damage is unavoidable, and more importantly I don't care about collateral damage since we are finally getting the audits and cuts we the people demanded for way too long.
Fixed that for you. Pharma companies do lots research. But the goal of that research is very narrow - to bring new therapies to the market. The Academy has very different goals - train next generation of researchers and make discoveries. IMO, expecting a pharma company to do the work of an academic institution is a recipe for failure. But that is just an opinion.
I remember my university taking 35% off the top of all grants for a lab that was 30 years old (hadnt been updated), and a sufficient but hardly cutting edge instrument room.
The university was getting far more money than if the PI rented lab space at an incubator.
exmadscientist|1 year ago
Altering the deal on existing contracts without notice is very much NOT a good idea. That they're attempting to do so is a pretty good sign of bad faith.
transcriptase|1 year ago
A $8M grant doesn’t cost a university any more than a $1M grant for university admin in terms of “indirect costs”. The fact that they think they’re entitled to several million of it to waste on things that shouldn’t be coming from taxpayer funded NIH grant money is obscene.
secabeen|1 year ago
Sure it does. An 8M grant is going to have roughly 8X more researchers working under it than a 1M grant. Each of those researchers needs space, parking, IT support, HR supports, etc. There are some economies of scale, but the idea that you could increase the staffing of a business by 8x and not have to hire more HR and accounting people is silly.
jeffbee|1 year ago
Mortiffer|1 year ago
I wonder if it is possible for them to connect funding to a maximum allowed ratio of admin to prof / lectures
elontrump|1 year ago
[deleted]
divbzero|1 year ago
This detail is worth highlighting. NIH has traditionally borne the bulk of indirect costs, allowing non-profits to issue grants with low indirect costs. Slashing NIH’s indirect costs will force research institutions to seek funds elsewhere or become financially unviable.
transcriptase|1 year ago
robwwilliams|1 year ago
NIH does not pay full salary support for many junior and senior scientists even if they work 100% on NIH projects. That is indirect support by the institution to NIH.
15% will kill academic medical research — the fountain head of a much or most progress we have made in preventing and treating a wide range of diseases.
PhotonHunter|1 year ago
I was first surprised that NIH put indirects on top and wondered if they were done NSF style if that would help control costs more.
refurb|1 year ago
How can they possibly shoulder the costs with their $40,000/yr tuitions and multi-billion dollar endowments?
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
syndicatedjelly|1 year ago
The original grant notice is a good thing to read. They properly justify the cuts, and I think it's something that a lot of people would agree with - why is up to 70% of grant money being sent to "administration and overhead" at giant private universities? My small LLC is currently applying for an SBIR grant, and we were capped to 40% unless we provided a big justification - which we can't, because we're too small to justify anything like that. Meanwhile, big organizations and universities can throw their weight around and bully the government into handing them more money to do who-knows-what with. Maybe build a nice shiny new sports center with.
This is a good reform - even though it will cost my LLC about $75k in indirect costs that we might have been able to bill (40% -> 15%). I'm more confident in my ability to reduce our indirect costs and compete on a level-playing field with everyone else.
citrate05|1 year ago
Also, indirect costs are not going to building sports centers. Funding agencies and the government audit universities in detail to make sure that the money is being spent only on research activities, down to calculating the amount of square footage per building that is being used exclusively for research, as opposed to instruction or clinical work. They have absolutely come after people and institutions, and successfully obtained multimillion dollar settlements, for using federal money to cover unrelated expenses. If NIH indirects were found to be going towards something like building a rec center or a facility for college athletes, it would be actual fraud and a national scandal, potentially on the “congressional inquiry” level.
scirob|1 year ago
seanmcdirmid|1 year ago
zmgsabst|1 year ago
When the country is $1,830,000,000,000 further in debt every year, universities will simply have to figure it out.
I suggest cutting their bloated administrations, to free up tuition and endowment funds for their actual purpose.
refurb|1 year ago
The federal budget (save DOD and entitlements) is stuff like this.
Saying “oh well, it’s just 0.25%” is the reason why nobody can tackle the deficit.
Do this 100x and you’ve suddenly reduced the deficit by 25%.
AlotOfReading|1 year ago
They'll lean on international students first like they have for decades, but those numbers are going to be down. They'll follow that by leaning on undergrads, but those numbers are shrinking too because of cultural and demographic shifts. Then they'll cut graduate funding (again) to try and get more blood from the stone. Then they'll try cutting the "extraneous" departments that don't bring in money or grants (read: everything except engineering, medicine, law, and football) again. Then they'll cut the departments that do bring in money. Then they'll do the work to shoulder the costs directly.
If you want reform, cutting funding doesn't work. It hollows out the entire institution before it even starts addressing the administrative issues. Reform needs to come from a different direction.
jordanpg|1 year ago
syndicatedjelly|1 year ago
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-0...
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
Dalewyn|1 year ago
We have a saying in Japan that goes: "Even dust piled up will make a mountain."
Considering the monies concerned here are also tax dollars, I am wholly unsympathetic to the actual monetary sums. They could be 1 cent and my feelings on this matter wouldn't change: Audit every single line item and slash anything wasteful.
Collateral damage is unavoidable, and more importantly I don't care about collateral damage since we are finally getting the audits and cuts we the people demanded for way too long.
arcmechanica|1 year ago
pfisherman|1 year ago
Fixed that for you. Pharma companies do lots research. But the goal of that research is very narrow - to bring new therapies to the market. The Academy has very different goals - train next generation of researchers and make discoveries. IMO, expecting a pharma company to do the work of an academic institution is a recipe for failure. But that is just an opinion.
malshe|1 year ago
elontrump|1 year ago
[deleted]
ralph84|1 year ago
[deleted]
refurb|1 year ago
I remember my university taking 35% off the top of all grants for a lab that was 30 years old (hadnt been updated), and a sufficient but hardly cutting edge instrument room.
The university was getting far more money than if the PI rented lab space at an incubator.
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
dyauspitr|1 year ago