Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.atnf.csiro.au/nca/University%20expenditure.pdf Дата изменения: Tue Sep 20 07:19:10 2005 Дата индексирования: Mon Oct 1 22:07:58 2012 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: ngc 5128

Annex E3 Total Australian university astronomy expenditure
Tot al Univ ersity astronomy expenditure can be calculated in sev eral ways. 1. Add up all of the funding input going to each university astronomy group. This is an intractable problem bec aus e univ ersity funding comes in a variety of guis es: University block grants (RTS/ITS), RI BG, Capit al works funds, ARC (DP, LIEF, Linkage, Fellowships), APA awards, DEST and, inc reasingly, student fees. Calculating the fraction that is attributable to astronomy in eac h institution is fraught. 2. Calc ulate what is spent by each research team. This is also fraught, and does not capt ure infrastructure costs, institutional overheads etc. 3. Rather than look at "input" or "output", take a slice through the system at an appropriat e level and apply the Equation of Continuity (aka the principle of Conservation of Money ) to equate this to the total rate of funding. This is the approach taken here, the slice being made at the individual astronomy depart ment lev el. The following items are not included, as thes e should be capt ured in other parts of the Decadal Plan: · · · Gemini, including univ ersity contributions Major instrument contracts, such as NI FS Travel costs

A number of assumptions need to be made. Any of these can be c hallenged, and new figures calculated. However, in most cases only a very minor change in the overall numbers results. The total figure should be accurate to better than 10%. Assumptions: 1. All ARC LI EF grants are spent exclusiv ely on equipment (or at least nonresearch-people). Thus, there is no double-counting by adding LIEF grants to people numbers. 2. All other ARC grants (DP, Fellowships, Linkage etc) are used exclus ively to fund people. Thus, no funding is left unc ounted by simply adding up all the people on externally funded positions at universities. This ass umption is likely to be the largest sourc e of error ­ if 10% of DP funding is spent on equipment etc, then we have underestimated the f inal figure by amount $1m. 3. All money rec eive for operating costs, s for example, us ed as double counting of LI d by research groups from internal univers ity funds (eg cholars hips etc) is spent freely by that group and is not, matching funds for ext ernal grants. Thus there is no EF contributions.

4. Astronomers are "average" members of the ex perimental-scienc e cohort of the university. Thus, the ARC's weighting factors for indirect costs apply to them.


5. Each ac ademic and researcher spends 100% of their time on astronomy. This might be challenged ­ is teaching a First-year class in electronics "astronomy "? However, we can argue that our skills as teachers derive in part from our experience as astronomers. It is difficult to think of any activity that we perform that is not in some way relat ed to either res earc h or teaching of astronomy-related topics. Wit h thes e assumptions, the total university budget for astronomy can be calc ulat ed. At a depart ment al lev el the throughput of money is made up of the following major components: · · · · · Salaries, which we c alculate directly from the numbers of staff Indirect costs, whic h we calc ulat e using the ARC's formula Equipment costs, which we equat e to the LI EF grants Operating and c onsumables ex penses, whic h are calculated from numbers the universities hav e provided APA awards, whic h we estimate are held by 30% of all Australian astronomy postgrads.

1. Salaries and Indirect costs. From numbers kindly supplied by eac h of 15 institutions, we know how many univ ersity-funded ac ademic staff there are (66) and how many externally-f unded postdocs (75. 5). Let's assume categories, ie to account for leav e, employ univ ersity, but an average salary at the top of lev el C (Senior Lecturer) for both $90k/annum. To the university-funded positions we need a multiplier on-costs (payroll tax, workers compensation, provision for long servic e er contribution for s uperannuation): t his varies from university to at UNSW is 1.28.

Using the ARC-approved formula, we can calculat e the indirect costs. Thes e include building infrastructure, libraries, works hops, technical support, administration costs. The ARC's estimate for thes e is 1.25 x (salary + on-costs). So now our salary-relat ed ex pendit ure is: Univers ity funded ac ademics: 66 в 90k в 1.28 в (1 + 1.25) = $17, 110k Externally funded researchers: 77.5 в 90k в (1 + 1.25) = $15,690 Tot al: $32.40m/year 2. Equi pment costs ARC LIEF awards to astronomy c an be found on the web for the past four y ears and are as follows: Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 Gemi ni ($k) 160 186 185 146 0 0 0 0 Non-Gemi ni ($k) 450 1172 0 782

Average non-Gemini LIEF funding per year is therefore $601k/year. This is typically 70% of the total, with c ash contributions from part ner institutions making up the remaining 30%. So, the total s pent on equipment is around $860k/year.


3. Operati ng and consumable costs. Tot al sum provided by the 15 universities: $3,708k. This includes RSAA, whic h receiv es a block grant. 4. APA Awar ds. There are currently 111 APA-eligible PhD students at Australian univ ersities. If we assume 30% of thes e currently hold an APA scholarship (this fraction should be checked), there are 33 students @ $20k per annum or $660k.

Grand Total:

$38.0 m per annum

Note: 1. This result is clos e to the figure of ~$40m/y ear that has previously been estimated by others. John Storey, 1 August 2005