skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

Title: The distribution of indirect cost recovery in academic research
Abstract Research universities rely heavily on external funding to advance knowledge and generate economic growth. In the USA, tens of billions of dollars are spent each year on research and development with the federal government contributing over half of these funds. Yet a decline in relative federal funding highlights the role of other funders and their varying contractual terms. Specifically, nonfederal funders provide lower recovery of indirect costs. Using project-level university-sponsored research administrative records from four institutions, we examine indirect cost recovery. We find significant variation in the amount of indirect funding recovered—both across and within funders, as well as to different academic fields within a university. The distribution of sponsors in the overall research funding portfolio also impacts indirect cost recovery. The recovery variation has important implications for the sustainability and cross-subsidization of the university research enterprise. Together, our results show where universities are under-recovering indirect costs.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1935023
NSF-PAR ID:
10304467
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Science and Public Policy
Volume:
48
Issue:
3
ISSN:
0302-3427
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ( , Coalition for Networked Information)
    As data management and sharing policies have expanded in the federal and private funding spheres, the costs to support institutions and researchers in meeting these expenses for services and infrastructure are not fully understood. A number of higher education organizations are conducting research and developing tactics for cost assessments of infrastructure and services distributed within institutions. This panel will present a snapshot of work recently started at the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP), the Council of Government Relations (COGR), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to investigate where public access to research data costs are incurred at an institution, with the goal of assisting universities in defining a strategy for planning for those costs. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ( , Water Environment Research)
    Abstract Practitioner Points

    This two‐decade UTEP‐EPW research partnership was sustained by a long‐term commitment to research and consistent financial support from EPW.

    Universities can collaborate to leverage utility funding toward larger external grant funding to advance research and development in a win–win partnership.

    The high‐recovery CERRO process was developed through multiple phases of concentrate management research, which would not have been possible without long‐term research commitment and risk tolerance from EPW.

    CERRO systems are being implemented at full scale in El Paso to recover water from silica‐saturated RO concentrate at an estimated specific energy consumption of 1.23 kWh/m3(4.6 kWh/kgal) and total amortized cost of $0.59/m3($2.25/kgal).

     
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , F1000Research)
    In the 21st Century, research is increasingly data- and computation-driven. Researchers, funders, and the larger community today emphasize the traits of openness and reproducibility. In March 2017, 13 mostly early-career research leaders who are building their careers around these traits came together with ten university leaders (presidents, vice presidents, and vice provosts), representatives from four funding agencies, and eleven organizers and other stakeholders in an NIH- and NSF-funded one-day, invitation-only workshop titled "Imagining Tomorrow's University." Workshop attendees were charged with launching a new dialog around open research – the current status, opportunities for advancement, and challenges that limit sharing. The workshop examined how the internet-enabled research world has changed, and how universities need to change to adapt commensurately, aiming to understand how universities can and should make themselves competitive and attract the best students, staff, and faculty in this new world. During the workshop, the participants re-imagined scholarship, education, and institutions for an open, networked era, to uncover new opportunities for universities to create value and serve society. They expressed the results of these deliberations as a set of 22 principles of tomorrow's university across six areas: credit and attribution, communities, outreach and engagement, education, preservation and reproducibility, and technologies. Activities that follow on from workshop results take one of three forms. First, since the workshop, a number of workshop authors have further developed and published their white papers to make their reflections and recommendations more concrete. These authors are also conducting efforts to implement these ideas, and to make changes in the university system.  Second, we plan to organise a follow-up workshop that focuses on how these principles could be implemented. Third, we believe that the outcomes of this workshop support and are connected with recent theoretical work on the position and future of open knowledge institutions. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ( , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)
    The Role of Teaching Self-Efficacy in Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Teaching Satisfaction We request this abstract as a Research Paper. Electrical and computer engineering (ECpE) faculty are under increasing pressure to teach more undergraduate students, generate more funding, produce scholarship, and mentor more graduate students. Moreover, reduced budgets for universities result in an inability to replace faculty, minimal annual raises, and fewer teaching assistants, all of which affect faculty well-being at work. Well-being for faculty in general has been shown to relate to retention and faculty job performance. The present study focuses on one element of faculty well-being, namely faculty’s satisfaction with their teaching roles. Our first purpose was to examine if, in line with previous research, environmental supports (e.g., support of the university, department, colleagues, chair) contribute to ECSE faculty’s teaching satisfaction. The second purpose of the study was to anchor the study using self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000). SDT posits that satisfaction of three basic psychological needs would add additional predictive power beyond work environment supports to impact faculty well-being. The need measured in this paper was perceived competence specific to teaching (i.e., the need to perceive oneself as efficacious in teaching). Hierarchical regression models were estimated to answer the two research questions, namely (1) does environmental support significantly predict teaching satisfaction and (2) does teaching self-efficacy make a significant contribution to predicting teaching satisfaction beyond the predictive power of each environmental support variable? Four analyses were conducted with each environmental support variable entered in step one (university, department, colleague, chair) and with teaching self-efficacy added in step two of the regression analyses. In step one of all four analyses, the environmental supports separately each significantly predicted teaching satisfaction: (a) university support accounted for 26% of the variance in teaching satisfaction, (b) departmental support accounted for 59% of the variance in teaching satisfaction, (c) colleague support accounted for 23% of the variance in teaching satisfaction, and (d) chair support accounted for 28% of the variance in teaching satisfaction. In step two of all four analyses, adding teaching self-efficacy to this model significantly predicted additional variance in teaching satisfaction beyond each environmental support. After university support, it contributed an additional 21% of variance in teaching satisfaction. After departmental support, it contributed an additional 6% of the variance in teaching satisfaction. After colleague support, it contributed an additional 20% of variation in teaching satisfaction. After chair support, it accounted for an additional 9% of variation in teaching satisfaction. These results lead to the conclusion that these four environmental supports and teaching self-efficacy collectively made a large contribution (together explaining 43% to 65% of the variance) to the prediction of faculty teaching satisfaction. These effects are large enough for administrators to target these factors as they seek to increase ECpE faculty satisfaction with teaching, potentially leading to better teaching performance and retention. Consistent with SDT, these findings suggest that leadership would do well to prioritize efforts to support teaching self-efficacy within their departments as a means to enhance faculty well-being. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ( , Environmental Research Letters)
    Abstract

    To meet the demands of technological change required for climate change mitigation, academic research must cover a broad range of climate solutions. Diverse participation in this research is important because research shows that a variety of backgrounds and problem-solving approaches are important to solving complex problems such as climate change. In our study, we examine the discplinary and institutional diversity of federal funding for academic research on climate solutions (ARCS) in the United States. We identify $1.42 billion in federal funding for ARCS in fiscal years 2019 and 2020. Our findings reveal that 85% of federal ARCS grants are awarded to Principal Investigators in engineering and the natural sciences. Additionally, institutions classified as having high research activity (R1s) receive over 60% of the ARCS funding per student. Tribal institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic Serving Institutions collectively receive only $109.20 in ARCS funding per student, compared to $334.30 per student for other institution types. These disparities in federally funded ARCS grants are, in part, a consequence of the absence of policies that promote interdisciplinary collaboration and broader participation in academic research. We discuss the policy implications that have contributed to the identified inequities in ARCS funding and current policies that could enhance the distribution of ARCS in the future. We propose strategies for federally funded ARCS to support an equitable energy transition that addresses the needs of contemporary society and beyond.

     
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email