A thought experiment with lots of money
Fantasy Science Funding is a fun game that anybody can play. You select a Science funding body of your choice, imagine yourself as its all powerful chief executive, and decide which areas of scientific research you would “hire and fire”. What could be easier? Here is how it works…
(Figure 1: Donald Trump and Melania Trump enjoy playing Fantasy Science Funding whenever they can squeeze it into their busy international schedule. Creative Commons licensed picture by Boss Tweed)
Step one: Pick a funding body The first thing you need to do is select a funding body that funds the kind of Science you are interested in. If you’re working in America, it might be (for example) the NSF, the NIH, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation etc. If you’re working in the UK, you can pick one from Who funds Science in Britain?. Alternatively, choose another funder of your liking, such as the ERC or whatever. Now you have your multi-million dollar/pound/euro/yen/rupee research budget.
Step two: Imagine Having acquired your millions, you now have to imagine yourself as the chief executive. If it helps spark your executive imagination, you might like to think of The Apprentice TV series executives like Donald Trump (Fig. 1) and Alan Sugar. Or not. The point is, you are the chief executive, your word is final.
Step three: You’re fired! As chief exec, it is your responsibility to “fire” areas of Science you think are unlikely to go anywhere by cutting the funding. Don’t make it personal, stick to areas of Science, rather than people. E.g. instead of “Professor Yaffle should be fired” say something more general like “I would fire Bagpuss science because of cruelty to mice and a lack of progress”. Be controversial if you like, life is too short to spend too much time worrying about offending people. You can also be self-indulgent too, remember, this is a fantasy! Above all, be brave, be brief and have fun. Beware though, power tends to corrupt, and fantasy power corrupts absolutely…
Step four: You’re hired! This is the fun bit, now that you’ve cleared the decks you can hire to your hearts content. Which areas of Science would you fund and why? How would you encourage more exploitation of web technology, especially blogs? What schemes would you put in place to encourage young scientists? How would you reward excellence without excluding smaller and possibly more innovative labs? How do you foster globally-competitive science? How do you encourage high-risk science that boldy explores the unknown rather than conservative low-risk science, which just fills in the gaps and colours between the already drawn lines ?
Step five: Blog it Once you’ve decided, write down your list of hires and fires in a blog post or somewhere on the interweb and link to it in the comments of this post below.
If enough people are interested, I will volunteer to chair an unconference session at the upcoming Nature Network science blogging conference 2008 at the Royal Institution in London. We can have a general discussion about science funding, review and vote on which “Fantasy Science Funding” entries are best.
I’ll kick the game off with How to spend a £400 million research budget, if you fancy joining in, get hiring, firing and blogging.
Last updated: Thursday, 14 Aug 2008 - 13:11 UTC
© 2009 Nature Publishing Group
Too bad I can’t make it to the conference, I hope you’ll report dutifully on it. Regarding the funding, it sounds to me suspicuously like the game we used to play in school: what would you do if you were King of Germany. (Or, Queen in my case.) I’m a killjoy I’m afraid, I’d set up a democracy and resign. In a similar vain, I don’t believe decisions of such high importance as science funding should be made by individuals. It might work, but the risk is too high it will lead into a dead end.
The total funding of science and the general areas is a tricky issue, I am presently more concerned with the internal distribution (i.e. once the money is granted for one area, how do we get it distributed to the most promising researchers). You find my recommendations in my recent post We have only ourselves to judge on each other (I had a session on this at SciFoo last weekend).
I’d set up a democracy and resign. In a similar vain, I don’t believe decisions of such high importance as science funding should be made by individuals.
Doesn’t sound vain to me…
I don’t believe decisions of such high importance as science funding should be made by individuals
Hi Sabine, I agree with you about that. Just for the sake of discussion though, I’m trying to stimulate discussion about funding. If we leave everything to committees we get some or all of the following:
It helps if individuals can give a direction sometimes, even if it is just a fantasy…
A potential problem with individual funding would be the lack of patience; I can’t imagine someone like Alan Sugar waiting 5-10 years for a return on their investment, also it is likely they’ll want to minimise risk, hence pick the projects with the highest probability of commercial success (but not necessarily the best).
Most scientific break-throughs take years of research and dead-end outcomes, only large multinationals and governments can afford such tolorence!
Yes, we need a patient version of Alan Sugar to be Chief Executive of our fantasy funding bodies.
Most scientific break-throughs take years of research and dead-end outcomes, only large multinationals and governments can afford such tolorence!
I think that at least in biotech there is the rule that innovation comes from the small new companies. Not from the large multinationals. The small companies do tend to be bought up by the large multinationals.
All this information comes from my memory and hence is unreliable.
OK but here is a variation taken from Fantasy Football. Sign up for Fantasy All-Star UK Research Department. You have a salary budget and can employ as many researchers from the list as you can afford given their outrageous salaries. Check their funding each month from EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC and Wellcome you get 100% credit if they are PI and 25% if they are CI. Sign up now register with me for £10. Form leagues in your lab…
Wouldn’t fantasy all-star UK research department just be called Oxford or Cambridge ? Discuss.
Only if getting extra government funding constitutes a level playing field
It’s never really be a level playing field has it ? But we still have to play the game.
If you are cynical you could play to make a hybrid Oxbridge department. But do not despair, UCL IC and even Manchester have their 5* departments to recruit from.
Yes, and many more besides. Lots of great world-class research going on in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, York, Reading, Brighton, Liverpool, Warwick etc.
Fantastic table, Brian!
Anyone who knows the Finnish language will also know that Perse School for Girls (in at no. 8, pop pickers) doesn’t translate in a suitable manner for young ladies
Sorry, I meant table, Duncan. And I did plenty of world class drinking in Glasgow, so the science couldn’t have been too far behind…
Lots of great world-class research going on in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, York, Reading, Brighton, Liverpool, Warwick etc.
@ Duncan – “behind the scenes”, I’ve been banging on about this for years – thank you muchly. And that’s just in the UK !
I did plenty of world class drinking in Glasgow
@Mike well obviously, world class drinking and world class science go hand-in-hand. I get all my best ideas down the pub
(or on the allotment / bike / train / bath / anywhere else outside the lab)
@Graham forgot to say southampton too, they have a really excellent computer science department the list goes on forever…
Ok, Duncan, I got my Fantasy Science Funding scheme outlined. Fire away! :-)
Hi Björn, thanks for your entry. There are a few others on the way too. You are a fantasy ERC chief exec, otherwise known as Fotis Kafatos
… we also have a late (or should that be early?) entry from Biochemist Arthur Kornberg which comes via Dan Rhoads at Bitesizebio
Bitesize bio reviews a book by Kornberg For the Love of Enzymes: Odyssey of a Biochemist where Kornberg describes the factors that made National Institutes for Health (NIH) a success .
One of the factors given is the NIH provided financial support for research outside the United States of America.
Thats fantasy science funding on a truly global scale.