From funding agencies to scientific agency
Citation: Johan Bollen, David Crandall, Damion Junk, Ying Ding, Katy Börner (2014/01/07) From funding agencies to scientific agency. EMBO Reports (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1002/embr.201338068
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1002/embr.201338068
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1002/embr.201338068
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): From funding agencies to scientific agency
Download: http://embor.embopress.org/content/early/2014/01/07/embr.201338068
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Summary
"there is mounting critique of the use of peer review to direct research funding. High on the list of complaints is the cost, both in terms of time and money. In 2012, for example, NSF convened more than 17,000 scientists to review 53,556 proposals [...] time would be better invested in conducting the research in the first place"
"Peer review may also be subject to biases, inconsistencies, and oversights"
"funding around calls‐for‐proposals to address specific topics might inhibit serendipitous discovery, as scientists work on problems for which funding happens to be available rather than trying to solve more challenging problems."
Reform proposals include:
- careful selection of reviewers
- post‐hoc normalization of reviews
- opening up review to the entire online population
- removing human reviewers altogether by allocating funds through an objective performance measure
Authors propose another: "require funding agencies to give all scientists within their remit an unconditional, equal amount of money each year. However, each scientist would then be required to pass on a fixed percentage of their previous year's funding to other scientists whom they think would make best use of the money"
"system will require stringent conflict‐of‐interest rules similar to the ones that have been widely adopted to keep traditional peer review fair and unbiased"
"Scientists and researchers may feel more strongly compelled to openly and freely share results with the public and their community if this attracts the interest of colleagues and therefore potential donors. A “publish or perish” strategy may matter less than clearly and compellingly communicating the outcomes, scientific merit, broader impact, vision, and agenda of one's research programs so as to convince the scientific community to contribute to it."
