Cutting overhead, it’s not that simple

Cutting overhead, it’s not that simple

Cutting overhead on NIH grants isn’t a magic bullet to help cut the NIH budget. Overhead from NIH grants helps cover infrastructure costs that you can’t directly budget on your grants. For example, my MRI scanners use a lot of power. Overhead from multiple grants helps offset the cost of keeping the lights on. I’m not a big fan of indirect costs tied to grants when I’m a primary investigator. There’s often a lack of transparency and the feeling that you’re getting less of your hard earned grant money. However, when I wear my facility manager hat, I understand that there are a lot of things that need to be paid for by someone, e.g., electricity, animal care support, etc. Indirect costs from grants covers many of those things.

“The costs are real and necessary for the conduct of research. It has to be paid for somewhere. And this historical bargain between the federal government and performers of research has been that the government pays part of the infrastructure costs,” says Tony DeCrappeo, president of the Council on Governmental Relations, a Washington, D.C.–based association of research universities and institutes that helps its members navigate federal regulations. Foundations, he adds, can get by charging a lower rate because they allow researchers to charge certain costs to their grant—such as leasing space—that can’t be charged to their NIH grant. And nonfederal grants may involve fewer regulations, lowering regulatory costs.

https://goo.gl/rIYrDG

Another overlooked area for the need for indirect costs is the growing need for administrative help to cover things like human data privacy issues.

The regulatory burden can be particularly high for medical schools, which must adhere to regulations for human-subject research, privacy protection and financial conflicts of interest, among others. The Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington DC says that 70 of its members have spent $22.6 million implementing conflicts-of-interest reporting guidelines that came into effect this year.

https://goo.gl/sZg2Hb

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/trump-wants-2018-nih-cut-come-overhead-payments