Aspects of your report on US federal funding of direct research costs and the indirect costs of facilities and administration are misleading (Nature 515, 326–329; 2014).

Contrary to your claim, no one is benefiting from federal largesse. Rather, the US government is partially reimbursing research universities for audit-verified indirect costs that they have already incurred.

Negotiated and actual recovery rates for indirect costs vary across the academic community because federal research funding is merit-based, not a welfare programme. Moreover, institutions may be private or public, urban or rural, with different structures, sizes, missions and financial anatomies.

The biomedical sciences depend on powerful technologies that require special housing, considerable energy consumption, and maintenance. Administration is being bloated by federal regulations, many of which dictate how scientists conduct and disseminate their research. It is therefore all the more remarkable that the share of extramural research spending on indirect costs by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been stable at around 30% for several decades.

Our respected system of federal funding needs to be accurately and fairly presented in this era of US budget distress and political gridlock, especially given that the NIH budget has lost 25% of its purchasing power in the past decade while grant applications have more than doubled.