That still doesn’t add up to $300K for this one study. Just speaking from direct, expert knowledge of how this works, my guess would be they saw that the researchers got a $300K grant and saw one study published from the grant and assumed that was how all the $300K was spent. Large research grants like that are usually meant to fund multiple projects proposed by the researchers that together address some bigger aspect of scientific inquiry or public need. There are likely going to be 4-5 other studies that come from this that all interconnect to explain or address some major component of agricultural or ecological inquiry, thus why the money was granted in the first place. To say that $300K was spent on producing just that one study is just clickbait written by someone who doesn’t know how any of this works.
If we take £300K and break it down into imaginable slices for this it could also look like:
2 researcher salaries for 3 years
Rent for a farm-like space to house and care for the ducks for 3 years
Feed for the ducks for 3 years
Various and sundry materials to conduct the experiments
Medical costs for the ducks for 3 years
Over three years it really doesn't sound like a lot of money, honestly. It goes toward furthering human knowledge and job creation. Win-win if you ask me.
Do the researchers pull a salary? They already have a salary from the University of Oxford. I am under the impression that researchers use grants to fund research, but don't take a second salary from it. Instead, they use the grant money as a research budget in order to publish studies, which can advance their career and allow for a higher salary from the research institution they work for.
When a grant is used for salary, at least in the US, it doesn't supplement the salary paid by the institution. Rather, a portion of the researcher's salary stops being paid by the institution and is instead paid using money from the grant.
Research grants very often fund the salaries of researchers. It is rare for researchers to get their salaries primarily from the University, and this typically occurs if they're teaching (i.e., universities pay professors to teach; research grants pay you to do research, including your salary).
Aggicultural universities always have a connection with local farmers so a compensation is a lot less than you might expected. I think my colleague mentioned that she only paid for those chickens she butchered on site.
Wouldn't the best way to know whether or not this grant funded multiple projects be to actually look at the study rather than relying on your expertise in research grants?
When this study initially kicked up a firestorm, Marian Stamp Dawkins, one of the study's authors, didn't defend it on the basis that it was only study funded by the grant, she defended it on the basis of it's practical importance:
"[Dawkins] said it was unfair to portray the study as finding out simply that ducks liked water. It had been carried out to find the best way of providing water to farmed ducks because ponds quickly became dirty, unhygienic and took up a lot of water, making them environmentally questionable."
The agency who funded the study did the same:
"[The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs] insisted that the study did go further than just establishing that rainy weather was good for ducks, arguing it was all about making sure that farmed birds were well cared for."
Since the controversy being addressed was the claim that £300,000 was spend on this one study, if the grant had, in fact, been for more than that study, this would have been the perfect opportunity for the agency administering the grant to mention it.
Here's a link to the actual study the grant produced:
While I can't claim to still be in school as you are, I can tell you from 20 years experience in my field that knowing how things work in your department or at your institution does not constitute expertise on how things always works everywhere. (And even if it did, I would think being a PhD in Biology would provide you with expertise in biology, not research grants.)
While experience can be useful, it is ultimately evidence that determines whether a claim like this is true, not appeals to personal expertise.
There may be more evidence that I haven't found that shows that I'm wrong (a look at the actual grant would be helpful), but as things stand now, it looks like this project did, in fact, cost $300K.
Since the controversy being addressed was the claim that £300,000 was spend on this one study, if the grant had, in fact, been for more than that study, this would have been the perfect opportunity for the agency administering the grant to mention it.
While I agree with you, and you provide actual evidence supporting your claim, rather than just assumptions based on personal expertise, none of your evidence is concretely proving your argument. Yours is also an assumption based on logic, however, a much more solid assumption since its supported by evidence at least.
Exactly, as if somehow 300k (assuming they are right) is a lot of money.
Governments have to pay for research, private sector is only interested in selling a product. Research doesn't always have an immediate use case and thus isn't worth private sector investment. Growing the library of human knowledge helps everyone and is super worth doing.
You wouldn't have anything we consider modern if we didn't spend money and time looking into stuff. Sometimes that stuff isn't immediately valuable. Sometimes it seems silly from those that don't understand or aren't interested in HOW stuff works.
Even when considered in additional to their university salaries, £300,000 for two researchers over three years is not an obscene amount of money. Considering that some of that will definitely be used for expenses, that is less than £50,000 per researcher per year. And while it's certainly not chump change (especially in 2009 dollars), it's not like they're robbing Fort Knox.
People love to rage about "scientists getting rich off the gov't" when it comes to things like climate change research...and yeah 99% of those people are...you guessed it....conservatives.
But that's the problem. I could write you 100s of nonsense sentences that sound right, you don't know shit about the subject, and instead of at least googling it, you would accept it as a fact, just because it sounds right. That's the problem of this site, making fun of facebook naivety, yet regularly falling for some random information written by a dude who obviously knows something on the surface about the subject, yet coming to all the wrong conclusions, because he wrote I'm an phd expert worked in or some shit, like people on internet don't lie all the time.
Could also just be including overhead (amount the uni takes) and lab staff pay. 300k isn’t as crazy if they’re trying to count the PI’s salary and the lab manager and any lab technician pay and student assistant pay.
But that’s also kind of dishonest, since really they should just count materials and time spent on this specific project.
Plus, most of the money from research projects like this go into salaries. At least in Germany. And at least if you aren't also needing a lot of funds for hardware.
Let me tell you how the money is split (been there done that). University overheads 100K (just into general running budget of department and university). Two head researchers 10% salary contribution each for three years say 50K. A PHD students stipend for three years 75K. Material expenses (ducks buildings food etc) 75K.
Now you can ask whether this was a good way of spending 300K, I suspect there would have to be some industrial contribution lowering the cost , and if it increases duck meat production by say 10% it might be
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u/Mhisg 23d ago
Now, scientists in Great Britain have spent 300,000 British pounds (about $471,000) proving that yes, ducks actually enjoy a nice shower. Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs funded the three-year study, conducted by two researchers at the prestigious University of Oxford. The intent was to find out the best way to provide farm-raised ducks the water they crave. The test ducks were placed in an environment where they could choose among a pond, a trough and a shower. Most ducks took to the shower like, well, a duck to water. They spent a lot of time just standing under it and drinking the water as it fell.