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National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

arstechnica.com

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Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#11
post #3

The overhead being charged at a lot of these places was obscene (and variable- it all depended on the specific institution). A fixed rate of 15% seems low, but reasonable. I expect the admin especially at places that charge a premium will be furious.

Maybe big private institutions will do fine. But this will be devastating for smaller institutions – especially public ones – that have had to deal with declining enrollment for years.

I work at a small state access university, without a meaningful endowment, that has traditionally had ~48% indirects. The majority of those go to research administration (e.g. research integrity, human subjects protection) and department general funds. Don't worry about facilities: we will literally be trying to figure out whether to cut journal subscriptions or startup funds for new hires, since we can't touch compliance.

Of course, it's not as if Team Red cared that much about universities anyway, or medicine, or biology...

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#12
https://bsky.app/profile/kgandersen.bsky.social/post/3lhmscc...

"This will be the end of American excellence in science.

Universities will struggle and many (likely most) will terminate their research programs.

Independent research institutions will not be able to survive this."

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#13
post #3

The overhead being charged at a lot of these places was obscene (and variable- it all depended on the specific institution). A fixed rate of 15% seems low, but reasonable. I expect the admin especially at places that charge a premium will be furious.

I think this very much depends on the field. The researchers I know are describing it as devastating because the type of research they do depends on things like animal facilities which aren’t cheap. Fortunately, we don’t need any biomedical research since drinking raw milk will solve everything.

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#14
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was an academic, I did all my work in the cloud. I didn't use copy paper, or even really need to be in the office (it had slower networking, and less comfortable chairs). The university had a multi-billion dollar endowment and got billions from the state to run its educational mission. Why should I be raising 50% on top of my money (which was so high, NIH often wanted to give money to people at "cheaper" unive…

It's very unclear to me how you seem to expect medical research to be done in the cloud. Overhead is crucial to create and maintain research infrastructure necessary to advance medicine and science.

I work in pharma and we do tons of medical research in the cloud and it was done before in academia; it typically wasn't my own university that developed (on its own from direct funding) the necessary infrastructure, but universities under contract, or NIH itself, or a consortia funded through grants. The university IT department itself struggled with just keeping wifi up, or giving us 10BT networks on a hub in an age when gigabit switches were common.

Note: I was not typical. I set up as a digital nomad a long time ago. A scientist with a lab on campus who pulls power, AC, and other resources from central services, must have some way of compensating the university, and you could argue that instead of a prenegotiated (and amortized) overhead, it could instead be a cost center billing (scientist gets contract, uses campus resources, gets billed directly for their consumption). Don't forget also that because of Bayh Dole, the university gets monetize the IP generated by their scientists (who typically do not see any direct revenue; instead, they have to make a startup that licenses the tech from the university).

My experience with overheads showed that the universities I worked at had the highest (50-75%) while less prestigious regional universities were more like 30%.

Oh! This is new: I just looked up Berkeley's rates now and they explicitly have an off-campus rate that is 25%, while the on-campus is 60%. Apparently the federal government was already capping off-campus at 25%! I also see that funding agencies like Gates, Chan-Zuckerberg, etc, already cap at around 10-15%. Man, the deans must be furious

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#16
This is a huge cut. Back of the envelope calculations for UCLA (a big research university with public finance information): $200M cut in operating revenue.

In 2023, UCLA had $270M in indirect costs [1] and they negotiated a rate of 57% with the NIH [2]. So, they had about $473M in direct costs. The new rate would be 15%, which is ~$71M. $270M-$71M = $200M.

[1] Page 24: https://ucla.app.box.com/v/acct-pdf-AFR-22-23 [2] https://ocga.research.ucla.edu/facilities-and-administrative...

(Reposting from a less popular posting)

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#17

About time. Research foundations like Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation rarely allow more than 15-20% in overhead from grantees. Research universities are bloated and epically inefficient, and hopefully soon go the way of Blockbuster.

Why do you think that research universities should go bankrupt? What do you think should replace their function in society?

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#18
post #14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very unclear to me how you seem to expect medical research to be done in the cloud. Overhead is crucial to create and maintain research infrastructure necessary to advance medicine and science.

I work in pharma and we do tons of medical research in the cloud and it was done before in academia; it typically wasn't my own university that developed (on its own from direct funding) the necessary infrastructure, but universities under contract, or NIH itself, or a consortia funded through grants. The university IT department itself struggled with just keeping wifi up, or giving us 10BT networks on a hub in an ag…

The rules for off campus rates are pretty strict, and not just “I’m not in my office.” They get used for Extension, stuff like that.

Ironically, prohibiting “breaks” to Gates, Chan-Zuckerberg, etc. and saying the rate they get is the same as your NIH rate would probably go over well. Most people I know in research admin are perpetually annoyed that private foundations act like being subsidized is their right.

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#19

About time. Research foundations like Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation rarely allow more than 15-20% in overhead from grantees. Research universities are bloated and epically inefficient, and hopefully soon go the way of Blockbuster.

Why do you think that research universities should go bankrupt? What do you think should replace their function in society?

People doing research funded by grants, rather than having 50% of their grant leeched off by a bloated administrative complex coasting on pedigree.

Re: National Institutes of Health cuts support to universities

#20
post #4
post #3

The overhead being charged at a lot of these places was obscene (and variable- it all depended on the specific institution). A fixed rate of 15% seems low, but reasonable. I expect the admin especially at places that charge a premium will be furious.

15% is wildly far from reasonable. More than that, it's an entirely made up number.

It is not made up, it is what private foundations allow for grantees overhead.
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