[b_emery]

If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion:

> A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build world-class labs for cutting-edge research that were the envy of the world. Scientists flocked to the U.S. causing other countries to complain of a “brain drain.”

and:

> Today, China’s leadership has spent the last three decades investing heavily to surpass the U.S. in science and technology.

In my field (a type of radar related research) in which I've worked for almost 30 yrs, papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. The Biden administration seemed to recognize this issue and put a lot of money toward this field. All that money and more is going away. I'm hoping to stay funded through the midterms on other projects (and that there are midterms), and hoping that the US can get back on track (the one that actually made it 'great', at least by the metrics in the post.

[csa]

> papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher.

Not germane to the main thread, but are the “new idea” papers written by Chinese authors mostly published in English, Chinese, or both?

If Chinese is part or all of the output, what method do non-Chinese reading researchers use to access the contents (e.g., AI translations, abstract journals, etc.)?

As a language nerd, I’m curious. I know that French, German, and Russian used to be (and sometimes still are) required languages for some graduate students so that they could access research texts in the original language. I wonder if that’s happening with Chinese now.

[blululu]

In my experience Chinese academics are far more bilingual than western ones. I think that for Chinese academics the English publications are generally of a higher quality and more prestigious, but I’m sure that too will change over time. I can definitely say that Chinese publications have gotten much better in terms of quality over the last 20 years and there are now a lot of results worth translating.

At this point ML translation is sufficiently good that it does not make a material difference for the readership. This means that there is not a lot of political advantage around having a more dominant language. The bigger point is about the relative strength of the underlying research communities and this is definitely moving in favor of the Chinese.

[stevenwoo]

I recently read a paper on health benefits of cheese and looked at the authors and they were all from Chinese universities, was expecting a US agricultural university, like UC Davis does a lot of work on products of California and was unaware that cheese was any part of mainland China’s traditional nutrition sources, I.e. why did they study this?!

[fallingknife]

I don't see any reason why specifically "indirect cost reimbursement" is anything to do with this. Sure, individually billing labs is administrative burden, but it's a tiny drop in the ocean of inane bureaucracy that university researchers already have to deal with today. And maybe if we got rid of the blanket overhead percentage, it would put pressure on universities to cut a lot of the crap. Researchers are much more likely to push back when they see a line item for how much that nonsensical bureaucracy is costing them.

[Tadpole9181]

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of research funding, and quite frankly repeating it without even basic research borders on negligence.

Universities use indirect funds for maintaining facilities, the shared equipment, bulk purchases of materials, staff for things like cleaning and disposal. It is pivotal that these funds are available in the right amount or research physically cannot happen despite being "indirect" (due merely to the legal definition of the word). And these rates are aggressively negotiated beforehand.

Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. If you want to stop the science, you gut the financial viability of research.

[bilbo0s]

I don't know that I'd rely too heavily on midterms in 26. Gerrymandering and all that.

[r00fus]

Gerrymandering? More like scrubbing the voters of the right to vote (SAVE act) or voter intimidation (all those militias standing ready!)

[sirbutters]

I don't know why this is getting shadowed. You're absolutely right. Gerrymandering is a threat.

[natebc]

Without the university infrastructure around these Labs they'd EACH have to each employ their own construction, maintenance, housekeeping, legal, bookkeeping, HR, IT, compliance (and more) staff.

There will still be some research done if the cuts to the indirects survive the courts but it will be drastically reduced in scope as the labs staff will have to cover any functions no longer provided by the host university.

And you probably know this but this money isn't getting stuffed in to university presidents pockets or anything. It's paying (some) of the salaries of ordinary people working at jobs that pay about 20% (or more) less than they'd make in the private sector.

[Fomite]

Things indirect cost reimbursements fund at my institution:

- The research animal facilities - HPC staff, upgrades, etc. - Our BSL-3 facilities (the only ones for a long way) - Various and sundry research cores - New faculty startup funds

Those are all pretty tightly correlated with success, and very difficult to support via single grants.

[nxobject]

What “outcome” would meet your standards for justifiable research spending? Is a 26% cap on the percentage that indirects can go to all administration - all staff apart from researcher hours directly dedicated to the project - a sufficient “outcome”?

[arunabha]

The GP post explicitly mentioned the growth of Chinese research capability that they directly saw. It's no secret that China has explicitly and deliberately invested in ramping up R&D.

Also, requiring absolute proof in a system as vast and complex as R&D at the scale of the US leads to complete paralysis. It's a bit like cutting off your fingers because you want to lose weight.