Being an academic scientist is a great profession. Once you have a permanent position (tenure) your chief role (apart from teaching) is to “do” research. In the good old days, when the Haldane Principle applied, government agencies applied a light touch and scientists got the funding to do pretty much what they wanted to do. This was because it was believed that scientists knew best what to spend their effort on. That has now sadly changed and research in the UK (and elsewhere) is being increasingle driven by politicians, because they now believe that they know what is the best for the country in terms of scientific research.
Is the Haldane Principle a good thing? The essence of the principle is that governments just give a dollop of money to “the scientists”, who then agree how to distribute it. In practice this was to be achieved by independent research councils, who were to be immune from commercial and political pressure. A great idea in theory. Did it ever work? In fact did the model ever operate in the UK or have the politicians always been directing from above.
If it is a good thing, then how do we try and get this form of funding model going again?
I understand completely where you are coming from. But when I was doing research, there were a few individuals (with tenure) who barely turned up at all – nobody seemed to notice or care— , and in a couple of cases were running other businesses “on the side”. A few checks and balances would not be amiss, though maybe there are indeed now too many.
Maxine: All organisations have dead wood. If you believe in the Peter Principle, they are a feature of any personnel management system. A good head of department gives these people extra teaching and administration to keep them busy. Also it is difficult to get promotion if you do not have a research profile.
Haldane’s view is about 100 years old now so it may just reflect a gentler age. My real worry is the way the EPSRC is removing (or at least severely eroding) the last vestiges of Haldane in their latest changes to the funding of Doctoral Students in the UK. Up to now, studentships are allocated to Universities with no strings (no defined project areas) in proportin to the amount of money the University is awarded for standard project grants. These are effectively extra uncommitted manpower that can be used for blue skies investigations, a dowry or start up present for new staff and as a mechanism for getting results in a new research area before applying for better funding. This is all going to change as the EPSRC wishes to concentrate effort into a few Doctoral Training Centres. This is likely to further narrow the UK science base, discourage research at smaller units and reduce diversity of provision. All bad things in my view.
I do agree with your sentiments, Brian, and I know a lot of scientists who read and publish in Nature feel the same way about “blue-skies” research, both from conversations with them and via our “Correspondence to the editor”
postbagemail inbox.I have a complex view of this. As an engineer, most of my research is highly directed at specific and commercial goals. Virtually all of the information I use in those efforts was developed as basic research with no commercial goals in mind. The rate of progress I am achieving would not be possible if I did not have that accumulated literature to work from. In a very real sense it is only because of accumulated basic research that directed research is able to be done.
Any type of research directed by non-researchers cannot be on the cutting edge. Funding only the “most important” fields is a recipe for disaster. I see the idea of funding only the 20 most important research fields as exactly like limiting one’s diet to only the 20 most important nutrients. A diet sure to result in illness and eventual death from nutrient #21, #22, #23…
For the most part it is impossible to tell what is going to be important 5 or 10, or 20 years from now. Presumably flexibility and the ability to respond to new discoveries with new research directions will become ever more important. Coupling rigid research programs to rigid research proposals on rigid research goals can only limit that flexibility.
Having basic research results in a field is crucial if that field becomes important. In a new field at first only a single researcher thinks that field is important enough to work in. If there is no funding mechanism for that single researcher to work in a field that he/she alone thinks is important, then research in a new field can never be started.
Competition may speed progress in fields with many researchers where the goals are obvious and predictable (and in some cases only require workman-like scientific progress, such as genome sequencing). How does competition speed progress in a field with a single researcher where that researcher doesn’t know what to expect? Not by any mechanism I can hypothesize.