Reductions to federal support for research at universities and other institutions under President Donald Trump are dimming young scientists’ prospects, cutting off pathways to career-building projects and graduate programs
It’s called indirect costs to use appropriate terms. These are part of awarded grant money but not part of the actual proposed research budget. These costs exist because there are utilities, office supplies, yes admin, etc that are needed to actually perform research that are 1) hard/impossible/impractical to quantify on a per grant basis and 2) specifically disallowed from being paid via the research budget.
The practice is fine in principle. Rates have gone up because inflation has gone up more than the budgets have. Also how universities allocate that part of their budget should also be changed. Rates should be walked back but that needs to be concurrent with budget increases.
Note that except for part of the PIs salary all salaries, benefits, equipment, reagents, etc are paid from the research budget.
Sometimes everything is paid for by the research group, including salaries, and utilities and facilities management is also charged back to the group by the university. The way those funds are allocated varies by institution and some are stingy as fuck, running “like a business.”
It’s called indirect costs to use appropriate terms. These are part of awarded grant money but not part of the actual proposed research budget. These costs exist because there are utilities, office supplies, yes admin, etc that are needed to actually perform research that are 1) hard/impossible/impractical to quantify on a per grant basis and 2) specifically disallowed from being paid via the research budget.
The practice is fine in principle. Rates have gone up because inflation has gone up more than the budgets have. Also how universities allocate that part of their budget should also be changed. Rates should be walked back but that needs to be concurrent with budget increases.
Note that except for part of the PIs salary all salaries, benefits, equipment, reagents, etc are paid from the research budget.
Sometimes everything is paid for by the research group, including salaries, and utilities and facilities management is also charged back to the group by the university. The way those funds are allocated varies by institution and some are stingy as fuck, running “like a business.”