UC wins about $3.5 billion per year in research grants, of which $780 million is for indirect costs. It’s not nearly enough, Croughan reported. Research support actually costs $1.5 billion per year, or $720 million more than UC recovers. "We’re losing about 20 cents on the dollar," Croughan told the commission. "Harvard complains about losing 5 cents on the dollar. I would argue we’ve not been aggressive enough." No university can hope to recover all of those indirect costs. In fact, some grant providers refuse to reimburse at all, Croughan said. But most big research universities are better than UC at negotiating reimbursement rates. "I was pretty astonished at how low our rates were," said UC Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom, a commission member.

Read full article [here].
by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: June 16th, 2010, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.