Comment by dagenleg

2 days ago

At least in France, where they have PhDs which last only 3 years, a years of PhD would cost ~45K EUR in gross salary (granted the student gets around half of that after tax), then let's say ~10K travel and consumables costs, then add up the inevitable 20% overhead costs and now you're looking at around 200K for the shortest possible frugal 3 year PhD.

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dagenleg

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rhubarbtree  2 days ago

At least in the UK, overheads are usually over 100%.

  • dagenleg  6 hours ago

    This sounds like quite an outlandish figure, could you please elaborate? For example, an ERC grant would allow for a maximum of 25% of the so called "indirect costs", that is, one fourths of all the the direct costs (gross salaries, materiel, travel, etc) gets paid as a lump sum, and this usually goes to the institution. How do you end up with over 100% overheads?

    • rhubarbtree  4 hours ago

      I recall putting a grant proposal together. An RA salary of £40K was charged to the project at £110K. Those numbers are roughly accurate, might actually have been slightly higher.

      I’m not sure how that gets accounted in different schemes, perhaps it is somehow impossible in ERC grants, but it is certainly the case in some grants.

      25% cap would I think make most universities bankrupt overnight.

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