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What a $500k grant proposal looks like

austinhenley.com

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Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#51

Post by [deleted] »

soheil wrote: post #50
lazyjeff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the math doesn't work quite like that, but it's a common misconception. 53% indirect costs (overhead) is multiplied on the direct costs rather than the total amount, so it is actually 500K-500K/(1+0.53) = 173K taken by the university assuming the full amount can be charged indirect. In practice, some charges like tuition and equipment do not have indirects, so the actual amount taken by the university would…

Also I don't think that is taxable income so basically multiply by 1.67 since most people end up paying roughly 40% of their income in state/federal taxes, social security, medicare, etc.

[deleted]

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#52

Post by bena »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #40
dwohnitmok wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That overhead honestly doesn't seem that high to me. If I think about private companies with low need for physical equipment (e.g. software companies) I suspect the overhead would be comparable if not greater. Usually I hear ~100% as an average figure (keeping in mind that overhead is defined as a percentage of non-overhead costs so 100% means half of your money spent is on overhead). But I'm not that confident. Woul…

I’m at a small software company that does lots of smallish (500k-1.5M) contracts like this. The government does audits to determine our overhead rate. Our is 2.8. That is my billing rate to the government is 2.8 times my hourly rate as determined by my salary. That pays for rent, benefits, and for things like the employees who aren’t on direct labor (e.g. accounting, HR, etc)

That means your overhead rate would be around 65%.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#53

Post by zozbot234 »

lumost wrote: post #46

I'd be curious what the impact of fewer but more voluminous grants would be on academia. As other commenters have noted this grant turns into roughly 1 student for 5 years working on the project for a professor. Even for this grant, you would expect that a professor would need 3-5 such ongoing grants to really keep the lab functional. It took 2 weeks to craft this grant proposal. Assuming the average academic has a 3…

More voluminous grants would be riskier and harder to evaluate, AIUI. As of today, the idea is that a grant functions both as a prize for having a competitive proposal in the first place, and as a wager on behalf of broader society on the actual research impact. So yes, grant proposals take time to craft but that's just part of the game, and arguably of the actual research that you'll be doing.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#54

Post by the_snooze »

lumost wrote: post #46

I'd be curious what the impact of fewer but more voluminous grants would be on academia. As other commenters have noted this grant turns into roughly 1 student for 5 years working on the project for a professor. Even for this grant, you would expect that a professor would need 3-5 such ongoing grants to really keep the lab functional. It took 2 weeks to craft this grant proposal. Assuming the average academic has a 3…

There are indeed larger grant programs. Those tend to be collaborative affairs. You have multiple PIs across different institutes going in on the same submission. Each person contributes a piece of a larger (hopefully cohesive) whole. It's generally less work per person compared to a solo submission for a smaller pot, but it's one of those cases where it's crucial to have established working relationships in your research community.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#55

Post by thrownawayalre »

lumost wrote: post #46

I'd be curious what the impact of fewer but more voluminous grants would be on academia. As other commenters have noted this grant turns into roughly 1 student for 5 years working on the project for a professor. Even for this grant, you would expect that a professor would need 3-5 such ongoing grants to really keep the lab functional. It took 2 weeks to craft this grant proposal. Assuming the average academic has a 3…

In many fields, students do not need extra grants for funding. Startup funds, teaching assistantship (TA) and other sources fund PhD students. You can advise 3-5 students who TA at the same time, without writing grants. Some fields on the other hand need more external grants to fund students. It really is field-dependent.

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#56

Post by [deleted] »

xwdv wrote: post #20

Nothing in this proposal should take 5 years. For $250k you can easily do this research in a single focused year probably. I imagine researchers must actually be doing multiple grants in parallel or have other main jobs to earn decent money because if they only do this one thing at a time I have no idea why someone would choose this life of poverty when they could be making solid six figures building practical things…

[deleted]

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#57

Post by TruffleLabs »

soheil wrote: post #50
lazyjeff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the math doesn't work quite like that, but it's a common misconception. 53% indirect costs (overhead) is multiplied on the direct costs rather than the total amount, so it is actually 500K-500K/(1+0.53) = 173K taken by the university assuming the full amount can be charged indirect. In practice, some charges like tuition and equipment do not have indirects, so the actual amount taken by the university would…

Also I don't think that is taxable income so basically multiply by 1.67 since most people end up paying roughly 40% of their income in state/federal taxes, social security, medicare, etc.

Where did you get 40%?

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#58

Post by [deleted] »

supernova87a wrote: post #48
deater wrote: post #39

as someone who couldn't manage getting hired by an R1 university, and also had three NSF CAREER proposals rejected, it's a bit sobering to see someone get it all so easily and then walk away from it. Not that I necessarily blame him, fairly burnt out on academia myself currently. Not getting a CAREER award can really set one back, both in time wasted applying but then having to compete with those who have them. I oft…

I found those NSF outreach requirements very frustrating, because I knew (or believed) that aside from some actually conscientious and dedicated people, most everyone was making up perfunctory or fictitious plans for how they would satisfy this requirement if they got the grant. And the NSF would not be checking on whether people actually did those things, or take back the money if they weren't fulfilled, so basicall…

[deleted]

Re: What a $500k grant proposal looks like

#60

Post by ModernMech »

glofish wrote: post #5

also noteworthy elements: university overhead 53%, so that leaves $250K. Over five years that works out to basically $50K/year That needs to cover 1 month summer salary plus the salary and the tuition for a single student, and the travel to conferences, and the experiment ... and that is a "prestigious" CAREER award only few people get ... no wonder the author jumped ship

> university overhead 53%, so that leaves $250K.

At many universities large capital expenditures over some threshold ($5K for my institution) have no overhead. Also a lot of that money is supposed to go toward supporting students and that money is well spent.

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