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.

中文翻译：

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学术研究中间接成本回收的分布

研究型大学严重依赖外部资金来推进知识和促进经济增长。在美国，每年有数百亿美元用于研发，其中联邦政府提供了一半以上的资金。然而，相对联邦资金的减少凸显了其他资助者的作用及其不同的合同条款。具体而言，非联邦资助者提供的间接成本回收率较低。使用来自四个机构的项目级大学赞助的研究管理记录，我们检查了间接成本回收。我们发现，在资助者之间和资助者内部，以及大学内不同的学术领域，间接资助的回收量存在显着差异。赞助商在整个研究资金组合中的分布也会影响间接成本回收。恢复变化对大学研究企业的可持续性和交叉补贴具有重要意义。总之，我们的结果显示了大学在哪些地方无法收回间接成本。