[MontyCarloHall]

>I've been shocked to see how this mentality is not duplicated in university environments

Why? Maximizing billable hours maximizes the amount of money the law firm as a whole makes, and thus the amount of money law firm leadership makes. Maximizing research output does not maximize revenue for the leadership of the university as much as further bloating the administration does.

[thaw13579]

At a research university, it would help get grants, a large chunk of which goes to the university via indirect costs. In practice, they expect the grants to flow on top of of these other minutiae often as unpaid overtime.

[hoseja]

This assumes grant-granting makes sense.

[thaw13579]

Right, unfortunately the grant funding model is deeply embedded in university research. Some folks get some startup funds on hiring (usually for lab construction/setup), but the rest is dependent on outside resources via grants. There are a few exceptions, e.g. Janelia, NIH intramural, Allen Institute, but they are unfortunately rare.

[feet]

I'm not sure I understand your comment, could you please expand on it?

[thaw13579]

I think the parent is suggesting that the grant-based model of funding research is itself flawed. There are many issues, so it could be related to how the grants are chosen/reviewed, funds are allocated, universities depend on them, careers of scientists are decided by them, etc.

[barry-cotter]

People, don’t downvote this. Partners at law firms follow their incentives. Administrators follow theirs. Expecting people not to follow their own interests is a recipe for disappointment. If you want good results making a good system works. Relying on gassing good people doesn’t.

[gnicholas]

How does adding administrative bloat increase revenue for the university?

I would contend that maximizing the amount of time that professors spend on the work they are uniquely qualified to do does maximize revenue for the university. It allows them to win more prizes, to cultivate and educate PhD students who can go on to become successful (to the credit of their PhD-granting institution), and educate undergrads (which can lead to more donations from parents or from grateful alumni).

I would think that on the whole, a university that was trying to maximize revenue would enable their braintrust to spend more time on activities that involve their brains.

[lmm]

> How does adding administrative bloat increase revenue for the university?

It doesn't, but administrators' salaries aren't really connected to the university's revenue. (And if they were, they'd probably focus on building more stadiums, selling more merchandise, and doing more advertising for deep-pocketed sponsors).

> It allows them to win more prizes, to cultivate and educate PhD students who can go on to become successful (to the credit of their PhD-granting institution), and educate undergrads (which can lead to more donations from parents or from grateful alumni).

The feedback loop for publishing better papers -> getting a better reputation takes decades, and it's not even clear you'd end up with more revenue at the end of it. As for attracting donations from grateful parents and alumni, the most effective way to achieve that is lowering your grading standards.

[tlb]

Maximizing research time helps over a much longer time horizon than getting lawyers to bill more hours. The principal-agent problem gets a lot worse when the time horizon goes beyond 10 years, as decision makers probably won’t even be around then.