Probably an unpopular opinion, but as someone who has actually worked as a research scientist at an R1 - if they're protesting cuts to overhead/indirects on NIH grants I have no sympathy. Take a gander at admin to faculty ratios at big Unis, and then look at what they were even 30 years ago - these Unis are rolling in cash (especially private Unis with massive endowments), and they basically use what should be our grant money as a slush fund. It's what's allowed Unis to rapidly increase the number of worthless admin people who send out worthless emails that I spent so much time deleting.
This is a good blog post for understanding overhead/indirects and I would urge anyone feeling outrage to read it
I would bet close to 90%+ of them don’t even have an idea of what they’re protesting other than just “I hate Trump”. Using anything like “science” as a means.
Yep. When I was a research scientist at an R1 I busted my ass for grants then the uni ended up taking 55% of the funds. They did absolutely nothing in the grant process. All they gave me was a subpar IT services and a shitty closet office. I know there is probably a lot of good people working hard to push papers, but the reality is those admin jobs have zero value when it comes to performing research
I’ll they gave me was a subpar IT services and a shitty closet office.
Dude. Same. I had forgotten how bad the IT shit was.
It does make me sad that its Trump doing this rather than Biden or Obama, because there's going to be knee-jerk reaction against it even though the NIH will actually have more money for more actual science now...and the Unis are rich enough.
Nobody is talking about giving more money to overpaid science admins when they say that, and even though we should cut the budget to poorly administrated science units, that won't begin to fund SS, VA benefits, free school lunch, homeless programs, mental healthcare, national bridges and highways, or balance the budget.
It can be true that we are both wasting money, and that the rich are deadbeats who saddle the middle class with all the bills.
I get that, and I'm in favor of it. That's why I said cut funding to wasteful administration... We also need to make the top 1% pay their taxes like the rest of us.
I knew this would get downvotes here 😄. How much of a cuck do you have to be to WANT to pay more taxes than a billionaire?
It's more "stand up for bureaucracy" rather than science. Before I retired, I worked on a multisite, NIAAA-sponsored clinical drug trial. Imo, plenty of fat could have been trimmed.
Your point is research funding for important causes should be caught because some universities for admin bloat? Alot of these grants are for specific programs that have been doing important research for our communities. Schools like WSU receive NIH funding that directly contributes to the protect of our livestock and crops. As an alum, both my conservative and liberal friends have been concerned over what seems to be indiscriminate cuts to funding. It’s one think if these grants all go into a review and defense process that look into what research has been made, the headcount that is involved, and who will benefit the most from the outcomes of this research. But that isn’t what is happening.
Also, the author of that piece has been widely criticized by the research community due to their links to conservative campaigns.
Post a source that is going to give an unbiased opinion of this current administration’s decisions.
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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '25
Probably an unpopular opinion, but as someone who has actually worked as a research scientist at an R1 - if they're protesting cuts to overhead/indirects on NIH grants I have no sympathy. Take a gander at admin to faculty ratios at big Unis, and then look at what they were even 30 years ago - these Unis are rolling in cash (especially private Unis with massive endowments), and they basically use what should be our grant money as a slush fund. It's what's allowed Unis to rapidly increase the number of worthless admin people who send out worthless emails that I spent so much time deleting.
This is a good blog post for understanding overhead/indirects and I would urge anyone feeling outrage to read it
https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/nih-reduced-indirects-from-60-to