logoalt Hacker News

robotresearchertoday at 4:45 AM1 replyview on HN

Some of that money goes to the grad students.

Source: I paid grad students the majority of my research funding for 16 years, and so did all my colleagues.

Unless you’re building a new facility at CERN, etc, the bulk of research cost is people.


Replies

evolightingtoday at 8:09 AM

I don’t think this is really about salary.

The “whole thing” is never cheap. Running something like a university — providing the environment, infrastructure, administration, facilities, compliance systems, equipment, libraries, grants offices, laboratories, and institutional platform that allow professors and graduate students to do research — is itself extremely expensive.

After all, if you look at the fiscal budgets of major economies, public spending on education and research is often much larger than military spending.