A query...

Wed Oct 25 13:25:12 UTC 2006

Shanley,

I don't know about Canada's indirect costs for grants, etc. but in  
the UK there certainly are high indirect costs. However, the UK  
Research Council's have now gone to a program called FEC (often  
pronounced with a different vowel in the middle by some disgruntled  
grant writers), 'Full Economic Costing', which means that your grant  
proposal must include an estimate of the cost to the University of  
every hour you plan to work on the grant, the square footage of  
University space (including your office) that will be dedicated to  
the grant, and so on. This has pushed up the costs of grants. The  
overhead return policy of some UK universities, e.g. the University  
of Manchester, is much more generous than in the US, meaning that,  
for example, in my last UK grants 15% of the total indirect costs  
came to me, allowing me to really do a lot more with the project and  
fund more graduate student research than I could have done otherwise.  
Some of this is part of the Blair-Brown push to put UK universities  
in research leadership worldwide and I think it is working at the  
level of grants. But, like Canada, there are no summer salaries  
available for PIs in the UK, since everyone is on a 12-month salary.

However, speaking of summer PI salaries, there is an immediate way in  
which every grant-applying/holding linguist can help the field: don't  
request summer salaries on your grants from the NSF and ask for the  
amount that would have gone to salary to go to better archiving, for  
example. Jr. linguists might need the salary support. But senior  
linguists could set a solid example by not asking for grant-based  
salary - except for buy-outs to do more research. Summer salary,  
though I used to always ask for it, really uses funds that could do  
better work elsewhere, at least if the linguist is earning a good  
salary already.

Just a suggestion.

Dan

On Oct 25, 2006, at 8:12 AM, Shanley Allen wrote:

> Another difference may be due to differences in the way that  
> faculty salary and university overhead are treated.  In the US,  
> it's typical for faculty to include in their grants money to buy  
> out teaching and to pay summer salary, since US professors  
> virtually all have 9-month contracts so aren't paid for the 3  
> summer months. In Canada, in contrast, professors are paid by the  
> university for the full 12 months, and typically don't buy out of  
> teaching unless the funded project is very large.  In the US, it's  
> also typical for universities to charge high overhead on grants  
> from federal funding agencies - at my university (BU) the rate is  
> 63%.  In Canada, I don't think this overhead is factored into the  
> individual grant but gets to the university in some other way  
> (although I may be wrong about this).  So US grants that look large  
> don't cover as much actual work because so much of the money goes  
> to overhead and faculty salary.
> Shanley.
>
>
> On 25 Oct 2006, at 15:02, Daniel L. Everett wrote:
>
>> Miriam,
>>
>> Interesting take on the size of UK grants. I guess some of this  
>> has to do with experience. Maybe NSF grants have gotten somewhat  
>> larger over the past few years.
>>
>> I served on the AHRC funding reform panel and had grants with the  
>> ESRC and AHRC far in excess of anything I have had from the NSF (I  
>> have had NSF funding for most of the past 22 years and have mainly  
>> had grants that fall within what I was once informed to be the  
>> 'normal' range for linguistics, i.e. below 300,000 for three years).
>>
>> The UK granting agencies let you know what the percentage of  
>> applicants receiving grants that year was. I was told by both ESRC  
>> and AHRC that about 26% of applicants received funding, so this  
>> accords with what you say. I would say that that is likely better  
>> than the NSF. (Paul Chapin has an excellent book from CUP on NSF  
>> grants.)
>>
>> Most universities in the US and UK will pay (out of central  
>> university funds) for their faculty to visit the relevant funding  
>> agencies and discuss projects with them. And in the US at least  
>> NSF representatives have been very helpful in discussing proposals  
>> with folks at the LSA annual meetings. I am sure that they are  
>> well aware of the need for more funds for 'proper archiving' of  
>> field data.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 25, 2006, at 5:50 AM, Miriam Meyerhoff wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Dan,
>>>
>>>> In fact, there in Scotland you have access to research grants  
>>>> that far exceed the grants available to linguists from the NSF  
>>>> by and large.
>>>
>>> I'm grateful to Dan for opening up the discussion beyond the US  
>>> (I restricted my comments yesterday to the NSF, since at that  
>>> point the contributors were all US-based).
>>>
>>> The position of British funding agencies such as AHRC and ESRC  
>>> (and, I believe, also the Canadian SSHRC) is that data collected  
>>> using public money is a public asset, i.e. open access, *SUBJECT  
>>> TO* the usual restrictions re. confidentiality etc., etc., based  
>>> on individual researcher's agreements with the people they are  
>>> recording.
>>>
>>> As far as the question of who has access to more dosh is  
>>> concerned: This is an interesting question, since the average  
>>> size of the grants to academics on the three links you provided  
>>> seems very similar. My impression (based on my own limited  
>>> experience) is not the researchers are more likely to get large  
>>> sums in the UK, but that the success rate for grant submissions  
>>> is perhaps higher (c. 1:4 applications funded; I'm not sure what  
>>> the ratio is for the NSF).
>>>
>>> chrz, mm
>>> -- 
>>>
>>> Miriam Meyerhoff
>>> Professor of Sociolinguistics
>>> Linguistics & English Language
>>> University of Edinburgh
>>> 14 Buccleuch Place
>>> Edinburgh EH8 9LN
>>> SCOTLAND, UK
>>>
>>> ph. +44 131 651-1836 (direct line); 650-3628 or 651-1842 (main  
>>> office)
>>> fax: +44 131 650-6883
>>>
>>> http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~mhoff/
>>
>> **********************
>> Daniel L. Everett, Professor of Linguistics & Anthropology and Chair,
>> Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
>> Campus Box 4300
>> Illinois State University
>> Normal, Illinois 61790-4300
>> OFFICE: 309-438-3604
>> FAX: 309-438-8038
>> Dept: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/default.asp
>> Recursion: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/rechul/
>> Personal: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/
>>
>> and
>>
>> Honorary Professor of Linguistics
>> University of Manchester
>> Manchester, UK
>>
>
> ************************************************
> Shanley Allen, Associate Professor
> Acting Chair, Department of Literacy and
>      Language, Counseling and Development
> School of Education, Boston University
> 2 Sherborn Street, Boston, MA, 02215, USA
>
> e-mail: shanley at bu.edu
> ************************************************
>
>

**********************
Daniel L. Everett, Professor of Linguistics & Anthropology and Chair,
Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Campus Box 4300
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois 61790-4300
OFFICE: 309-438-3604
FAX: 309-438-8038
Dept: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/default.asp
Recursion: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/rechul/
Personal: http://www.llc.ilstu.edu/dlevere/

and

Honorary Professor of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK