Overspending on Overhead

Federal research dollars are needlessly wasted as scientists spend more and more of their time trying to recoup operational costs.

Written byViviane Callier

| 4 min read

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Chances of obtaining a grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) are at an all-time low: currently, less than 10 percent of proposals for R01s—NIH’s bread-and-butter research grants—are funded. In theory, this should encourage universities and scientists to be more efficient and resourceful in their use of funds once they score a grant. Yet, paradoxically, the current system creates incentives for tremendous waste, and does not make use of the available money. Policy change is necessary to ensure that tighter budgets are utilized in a way that supports the best work of scientific and societal value.

How is the current system wasteful? Because grant money is tight, investigators are forced to apply for more grants to increase their ...

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Meet the Author

Viviane Callier
Viviane was a Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where she studied early tetrapods. Her PhD at Duke University focused on the role of oxygen in insect body size regulation. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Arizona State University, she became a science writer for federal agencies in the Washington, DC area. Now, she freelances from San Antonio, Texas.
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