"Did you know most professors spend 50% plus of their time chasing grant money?"
If you'd like them to spend less time, give larger grants. I'm surprised you couldn't figure that out.
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Katharine Hayhoe
January 27 ·
"Climate Change is a Hoax ....Big Money For Scientists to get Grants....Climate Change is Welfare for Scientists!!"
I receive messages like this on a regular basis. And when I point out that an earth scientist with a PhD would get a lot more money working for an oil company than a university, it's met with total incomprehension.
Why is it that people are so convinced all climate scientists are shoveling millions of dollars of government grant money into their Swiss bank accounts (and oil executives aren't shoveling billions into accounts in the Cayman Islands)?
Part of it might be because grants always seem to involve such enormous sums. And it's true, the biggest grant I was ever awarded was the stunning amount of $1.1M USD. Stunning, that is, until we break it down. Here goes!
I wrote the grant with 4 co-principal investigators from different universities. So we divided up the money about equally, giving each of us around $220,000. Still a nice amount.
The grant was for 4 years, which meant I had $55,500 to spend each year. Still nice, right?
Then the university takes 1/3 of that for "facilities & administration" costs. F&A doesn't cover the luxuries -- my office has no window, I bought all my own furniture and computer -- but it does give us internet, electricity, and an infernal amount of paperwork. That leaves $37,000 for me to spend each year.
With that money, I pay a graduate student the princely salary of about $25,000; I pay the university their tuition, which is around $10,000; and that leaves $2,000 left over each year. Year one, I buy the student a computer; year two, I pay for them to attend a scientific conference; and years 3 and 4, I pay for us to publish one scientific paper because yes, those cost about $2,000 as well.
BOOM - that's how a scientist spends $1.1M! Surprised?
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