The Boston Globe's website has an interesting article on the federal government's attempt to better control "indirect costs" or "overhead payments" as described in the article. To be clear, once a researcher is awarded a grant, it is given the awardee's college or university which administers it. In addition to the costs of administration, additional reasonable costs might be covered (e.g., building costs, utility costs, etc.), and these two costs (costs for doing the research or "direct costs" and "indirect costs") is the amount of the total award. So, if a researcher at, say, Harvard, is awarded a grant that provides $100,000 a year for research, the university is given $69,000 for administering it (i.e., 69% in indirect costs). This is a very high indirect cost even comparison to schools in Boston but it turns out that the big research universities systematically get larger indirect costs covered than smaller ones. Of course, all of the big universities have their own lobbyists in Washington, D.C. as well as in their state houses while smaller universities may have to do with less powerful advocates. For the article, see: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-thwart-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Ridc4YwDfkGlmWfUUJ0snI/story.html
-Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=24409 or send a blank email to leave-24409-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
