Thursday, December 15, 2011

Science funding tends to favour mediocrity over grand ideas

is a good job

Einstein does not need a subsidy

The type of hobby that can entertain physicists is to imagine writing grant applications to Einstein in 1905. "I intend to investigate the idea that light travels in small pieces," you say. "I will explore the possibility that time slows down speed things up," said another. Imagine what those comments were raised by the evaluators of the Agency for German science funding, there was such a thing existed. Instead, Einstein got to do the work while still drawing his salary as a class of third technical expert at the patent office in Bern. And it was invented quantum physics and relativity.

The moral seems to be truly innovative ideas are not funded - the system is configured to exclude them. To get money for research from government agencies, you must write a proposal that is evaluated by anonymous referees ("peer review"). If your ambitions are too large or unconventional ideas, there is a strong possibility that any good. So the money goes only to "safe" for the proposals Tromp beaten track, timidly advancing the frontiers of knowledge of a few nanometers?

There is some truth in the accusation that give poor support mechanisms. After all, your proposal must specify exactly what we do. But how can you know the results before making experiments, unless the objective of demonstrating that the bleeding obvious?

that science is funding $ 24 million is a pittance - the pot of $ 5.5 billion in total NSF (£ 3.5 billion). And each application is limited to $ 1 million. But this is only a pilot could follow. The real problem is that creativity has created everything, because that could be construed as an admission of failure by the NSF to support innovation. It's not like the NSF would see. It seems that the traditional funding mechanisms have blind spots, especially when it comes to supporting research that transcends disciplinary boundaries.

is a known problem. Speaking of the importance of "interdisciplinary" is fashionable, but most funds are still deployed in the conventional limits - medicine, for example, or particle physics - so if you have an idea of ??how to applying particle physics to medicine, each agency manages the access request to another.

The problem is compounded if you tackle a big problem. For a new drug you need chemicals to fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa will require not only drugs, but the experience of epidemiologists, social scientists, virologists, and more. The buzzword for large solutions and technologies is "transformative" - ??the Internet is changing, Viagra is not. This big-picture thinking is in vogue, the future of the program of the European Commission of new technologies is the promise of a prize of ? 1 billion (now as we speak) next year for projects in the processing light of what is called
Creativ are schemes such as the way forward? Because the funds will be allocated by the administration of individual projects rather than risk the conservatism of the review panels, you may fall on cronyism. And who can say that project managers will be more tolerant and perceptive? In the end, is a Gordian knot: only experts can properly assess the proposals, but, by definition, vision tends to be narrow. It's good that Creative recognizes the problem, but it remains to see if it's a solution. As film production or publication, you must accept that there will be failures. It's a shame that there is no scientific problems can be solved with pencil, paper and packs a patent clerk for payment.


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