Governments spend billions in funding research in basic sciences, but no one agrees on what is the best way to distribute the money. Grading and ranking grant proposals as in a competition is the usual procedure adopted by funding agencies around the world. But researchers need to spend a significant fraction of their time preparing the proposals, while reviewers must either spend a lot of time going through them or scan most of them quickly, making it an unfair evaluation. Science can be made better if scientists are able to spend more time doing research and less time competing for research grants. In this essay I suggest a more efficient way of funding research in basic sciences, one that requires a much lower time commitment from both researchers and reviewers. This not only leaves more time for both groups to do science, but also helps to make the distribution of research funds more equitable.
Efficient funding produces better science
Your essay is a joy to read! Very well written and with some interesting ideas.
I completely agree that the format of research funding is far from ideal, and tends to promote less visionary science. The "no proposal" model you suggest is intriguing, and I think something in this direction would be a very positive step.
One aspect I wonder about is how to make such a system sustainable. Without the focus on short-term deliverables, I suspect publication rates would suffer- this is not in itself necessarily bad, but if one's recent track record is critical to obtaining such funding then scientists awarded one such grant may be less likely to be awarded another. In any case, an idea worth exploring!
Thank you for the compliment!
I agree that the problems you mention will be there -- in particular, publication rates could fall. But I would hope that it will be the "publication mill" type papers which will reduce in numbers and the genuinely good papers by motivated research will continue to get published. And you are right in thinking that scientists will have difficulty in getting multiple concurrent grants. But it will allow more people to be rewarded for their research, which is turn is likely to produce a bigger variety of research. But yes, some agency has to be willing to try it out for at least ten years to see how it goes.
Amitabha Lahiri
A very important essay and ideas aimed at improving the effectiveness of scientific research. I believe that "Open Science" and the Internet can provide new opportunities to encourage scientific research, especially for solo researchers.
If there were sufficient funding to support competing scientific programs (Descartes, Newton, Leibniz), then I believe that television would have appeared as early as the 19th century.
By the way, Wikipedia has some interesting information:
<<In the early Zhou dynasty (-c. 6th century to 221 BCE), government officials used their resources to fund schools of thought of which they were patron. The bulk of their philosophies are still relevant, including Confucianism, Legalism and Taoism.
During the Mayan Empire (-c. 1200-1250), scientific research was funded for religious purposes. The Venus Table is developed, showing precise astronomical data about the position of Venus in the sky. In Cairo (-c. 1283), the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun funded a monumental hospital, patronizing the medical sciences over the religious sciences. Furthermore, Tycho Brahe was given an estate (-c. 1576 – 1580) by his royal patron King Frederik II, which was used to build Uraniborg, an early research institute.>>
This is my favorite essay. However, after reading your essay I hate to think of this as participating in a funding competition and exposing my own bias for cogent arguments. Nonetheless I hope this essay wins.
You would think science would have measured, solved, and optimized this funding problem. The only thing I would add is how to address a market failure, which is to unionize and collectively bargain with the funding agencies. Ultimately this all boils down to a monopsony. The solution to counter a monopsony is a union.
A monopsony is a market where there is only one employer or a market with just a handful of buyers. A town with a single factory (one university) can pay lower salaries to employees (academics). Funding agencies can pick any researcher to fund and that researcher has almost no other funding alternative.
There are many universities so there is some competition. But they also educate their own workforce and saturate the labor market. Any other corporation would be envious if they could get their employees to pay the company, even if it means taking out a loan, for their own training before the company hires them. I cannot prove that universities are also colluding with each other to suppress wages. They likely just call each other to determine the “fair market rate” for researchers.
You are right that science should be funded. But the employer is an abusive slave driver who acts as a middle man between the scientist and funding agencies. They also get a percentage of any intellectual property from the tax payer provided funding. The only way to achieve a “no proposal” grant process is through collective bargaining. Through a union.
I believe it is a missed opportunity for society when someone is highly trained in an esoteric area at their own expense, with just a handful of experts in the world, a master craftsman who then abruptly stops and quits science to work in an unrelated area.
Science is historically the playground of the idle rich. Henry Cavendish of gravitational constant fame was literally one of the richest men in England. Tycho was incredibly wealthy. He bankrolled his own research and hired Kepler as an assistant. Harvard got its endowment through a lottery. Bell Labs funded basic science research using Bell telephone monopoly money. The Perimiter institute comes from a Blackberry fortune. FQxI comes from an investment banking fortune.
But science is now industrialized and is mostly funded through governments and it is almost impossible for them to bust unions due to their own government rules. But universities are valued because they do bust unions. This is why I believe academics should create a union and their own universities. It would out compete all the other institutions.
Thank you for the encouraging remarks! Unfortunately scientific agencies tend to behave more like factory managers rather than venture capitalists, so I doubt if my suggestions will be taken at all.
Thank you for the encouraging words and I am sorry I didn't see your remarks earlier.
You are quite right in your characterization of the universities -- the way they suppress wages for researchers, both faculty and various levels of research assistants, should attract strong condemnation. And yes, a union could work. But we do have things similar to unions, called learned societies, like the APS, the ACS, the AAAS, the science academies in many countries. But their voices are not strong enough. Perhaps it is a flaw in the ``market-driven'' system, the workers, no matter how well they band together to ask for more, can never really change the system. The instruments of control remain with the rulers and the middlemen, while a few leaders of the workers are rewarded with a seat at the high table, as a distraction to the rest and also as something to aspire to.
My suggestion would remove one of the controlling instruments from the hands of the middlemen, so as to provide some freedom to the workers. If the agencies are actually looking for novel research, they would allow something like this.
Your ideas on efficient funding basic science research makes sense regarding how science could be made better. Unfortunately, as you point out, this kind of research is a fairly small part of funding but should be more in funding by government. What is also true it might not meet the needs for specific areas of the public interest like cancer and pandemics unless fund seekers are tuned to these needs. My understanding of your no-proposal wouldn't necessarily insure pursuit of a public need which is the responsibility of government. What your proposal would do is perhaps increase the variety of research and perhaps more creativity. My 'Global Externalities" essay deals with many agenda-based problems our global culture has fostered and not solved. Science is the answer and the solution in dealing with the required differences needed.
I have noticed a deficiency of rating in the new anonymous system and have stepped up my ratings including yours.
Hi PeachHippopotamus
I see you have 6 ratings and so need another 4 to qualify for the next stage of the contest. As do I. Would you like to help each other get across the line by reading and rating each others essays over the weekend? Mine is titled "Age of Knowledge"
Cheers
Swan
Thank you for the comments!
It is possible that my proposal (of a "no-proposal" approach to funding) will not work for socially directed research like drug development, but that is not necessarily true. Suppose you were in a committee making funding decisions on cancer and you receive a grant application without a proposal. Of course it would have to be in the general area of cancer, but does not say much else -- definitely not what they are planning to find and how. Then you look at the work done by the PI's and collaborators for the last 5 years -- if they have done promising work, they are likely to get more, while if they have done more of the same they are likely to get less.
Basically, if you wonder if this process will work for some particular type of research, put yourself in the place of the funding committee. What would you ask for in the grant proposal? Does it really matter to you that you know exactly what they are looking for? Should it matter? Can you trust them that they are working really hard to find solutions of genuine problems? Of course, you know the field and you know the background of these researchers. I think genuine researchers should be trusted with the money, They are more likely to surprise us than those who can describe every step of their research, because the latter are likely to be totally mechanical in their approach.
Thanks. I will take a look at yours.
Thanks! I will take a look at yours.
You identify an important topic, and I like the 'no proposal' concept. A well written and argued essay. I also agree that the MAJORITY of advancements are serendipitous, saying much about old doctrinal views! My own also touches on the grant funding issue, though as one of many key issues and much new physics identified in what I present as an 'interview' with intelligent aliens, Sound crazy? The subliminal communications may as well have been from a past iteration, but they are what they are; Shocking, but I found them Irrefutable except with old beliefs! Do have a look and score it. I'm scoring yours consummately with my comments. Very well done.
I liked your essay and have given a rating.
Amitabha Lahiri Hi PeachHippopotamus. You've written a great essay, very well done. I was very pleased that you suggested AI might be a resolution to the issues that arise from competitive funding. It would be a big win if significant distractions for scientists could be avoided, and while more effectively allocating the funding. I can believe you're glimpsing the future. I'll rate your essay now and best of luck in the next stage of the contest.
Swan
Thank you for your comments! AI is a powerful new entity which has the potential to do great things -- good or bad. We need to figure out how to rein it in our service before long.
Great essay.
The mechanism of grant funding is well explained and the criticisms raised are effective.
Your "no proposal" model is also very interesting and could really be useful to support those young scientists with innovative ideas.
Your story reminds me of the following painful experience. I had the opportunity to write a grant in which a very important Nobel laureate (one of the most eminent living scientists) made himself available to supervise me in the project, hosting me in his department for a collaboration. The project was indeed visionary but well supported by peer-reviewed results. Unfortunately, due to a certain obtuseness of the bureaucracy that you well-described in your essay, and largely due to censures received by arXiv for my research on which the grant was based, my proposal was rejected. No words!
If you want more information on the negative effects that arXiv can have on the progress of scientific research and on its absolutely anti-scientific policies, please read (and rate) my essay "The Name of the arXiv: when too much zeal is an obstacle to science"
Hi PeachHippopotamus,
I see you're one rating short of the 10 ratings needed to qualify for the next stage of the contest. Would you like to help each other get across the line by reading and rating each others essays before the June 8 deadline? Mine is titled "A tool for helping science find the optimal path toward the truth: falsification."
Cheers
CoralBear
Donatello Dolce Thank you for your comments! I hope the model I have proposed -- if it is ever adopted by ANY agency -- will help not only the young scientists, but also older ones who have difficulty securing funding simply because their proposal may be a little outside their perceived expertise or because it not quite "more of the same." Your experience is not unique, I am sure.
I have read your essay and given a rating. I thank you if you have given one to mine.