Re: Recent discussion on renaming indirect costs (or worse, overhead).

"What's in a name?" Plenty, obviously.

There have been a number of suggestions to rename indirect costs recently,
not only on this listserv, but elsewhere. one good one I read recently (but
cannot remember where - please remind me) is "Research Support Costs".

One of the fundamental problems is that the term is codified in A-21. The
second problem is to get people to agree on something. A third will be
to educate sponsors what this new term (and large chunk of the
budget) really is: will it help when they discover it is indirect
costs in disguise?

Maybe this is a good project for COGR to take on, with
input from SRA and NCURA. But remember, grant administrators in higher
education are not the only people who deal with indirect costs. There are a
lot of others who would need to be included in such a discussion - K-12,
state agencies, industry, etc.

Well, got to go to D.C. for NCURA: see you there. Regards, Charlie
Charlie Graham, Director, Office of Sponsored Research
117D David Boyd Hall, Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 50310       504-388-8692    xxxxxx@UNIX1.SNCC.LSU.EDU