[orforforof]

I can think of two factors. First, some direct costs could be prohibited. But more importantly, to make this work universities would need to restructure to make all of their services fee-based, and researchers would need to allocate these fees item by item in their proposals. Which seems doable, but is no way to run an efficient operation. Even if the bottom line looked the same, the value to NIH and taxpayers would be far worse due to the inefficiency.

[scarab92]

More likely, overpriced institutions like Harvard will cease to be competitive for grants, and those which offer better value for money will be better placed to submit competitive grant proposals.

[throwyouaway]

Im sure there is fat to be cut but the indirect model eliminates the need to spend so much effort accounting for the 5 minutes this grad student used this piece of shared equipment, 20 minutes that post doc used this equipment. Have you ever had to account for number of sheets of paper printed on a shared printer? Total waste of time when considering the cost of accounting and time of these expensive workers. Indirects are an imperfect solution to a real efficiency problem. I really think the solution is to identify “abusers of the commons”and hold them accountable

[justin66]

Harvard can pay for the indirect costs at issue with a fraction of the money its $53B endowment earns.