Depressing or infuriating, you decide.
Gordon, R. and Poulin, B.J. (2009). Cost of the NSERC science grant peer review system exceeds the cost of giving every qualified researcher a baseline grant. Accountability in Research 16: 13-40.Hat tip: Sandwalk, Blog Around the ClockUsing Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) statistics, we show that the $40,000 (Canadian) cost of preparation for a grant application and rejection by peer review in 2007 exceeded that of giving every qualified investigator a direct baseline discovery grant of $30,000 (average grant). This means the Canadian Federal Government could institute direct grants for 100% of qualified applicants for the same money. We anticipate that the net result would be more and better research since more research would be conducted at the critical idea or discovery stage. Control of quality is assured through university hiring, promotion and tenure proceedings, journal reviews of submitted work, and the patent process, whose collective scrutiny far exceeds that of grant peer review. The greater efficiency in use of grant funds and increased innovation with baseline funding would provide a means of achieving the goals of the recent Canadian Value for Money and Accountability Review. We suggest that developing countries could leapfrog ahead by adopting from the start science grant systems that encourage innovation.
Wow. This would apply only in countries with a relatively small scientific community, like Canada, right?
Let’s say that a scheme like this was implemented? What it do for the quality of the research output?
Oh, that is fantastic. I will download and circulate this article immediately (presuming the local library system has it).
Certain other funding agencies in this country are famous for spending inordinate amounts of cash on their review processes. Not naming any names, mind you.
Oh that is ridiculous!!
If anybody can’t see that article, I cough might cough have a copy I could
pass alongcarefully review for you after reading it for only my personal edification.I just finished reading the whole paper.
Wow.
It’s not just a simple financial analysis, but also an account of the problems inherent in science, including the leaky pipeline; problems attracting students into research; low salaries and poor job security; the problems faced by scientists (especially women) who want to have a family; scientific fraud; short sightedness; political interference; overreliance on grant dollars as a sign of research productivity and excellence; lack of emphasis on good teaching; the paperwork and time costs of preparing and reviewing grants; university funding cutbacks; patents; lack of innovation.
Parts of it are a bit ranty, but I highly recommend reading it, even if you’re not in Canada. My initial reaction is as follows (but may change upon further reflection and re-reading):
Also:
Wow. Finally, some apparently rational analysis of the crazy system we work in by someone without a direct vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Essentially they are suggesting a form of scientific socialism?
@ Corie, I imagine this may apply in a similar way to the Australian funding system. Ironically, the ARC (Australian Research Council) have been applying this mentality – in a limited sense – recently by cutting approved grant budgets (compared to the $ asked for) in order to maintain the %success rate for funding applications.
At the risk of offending you Cath, can you imagine how much this approach could potentially cut-down the dreaded “indirect costs” levied by university admin?
@ Cath, I would never suggest putting you out of a job!
Don’t worry, I’m not offended in the slightest! My job is made necessary by the system, if the system changes then the overall benefits will outweigh the relatively small number of people who will be
up s&%t creek without a paddleencouraged to find alternative employment.(Comments crossed) I’m glad to hear it! I’m sure they could find some other use for me if the need for grant applications disappeared overnight. Like, um, chief dish washer, or water fountain polisher, or something.
Ah, the “indirect costs”. Of course, if you’re big and bad enough, you can dictate that institutions can’t levy them on the funds you provide. Genome Canada jumps to mind… oh, wait. Never mind.
Most charitable foundations cap indirects at much lower ratios (Autism Speaks, for example, is 10% as I recall, although I may be wrong). Indirect costs always annoy me, since I don’t buy that administering a $200k grant costs twice what administering a $100k grant does, but that’s an unwinnable argument I think.
I would like you all to read this comment first, as this is where it all started (I got that paper from my brother, posted, Larry linked to it and then it spread here as well). I would like a serious discussion to take the whole paper (not just abstract) and that comment as starting points.
I’ve read the paper even though I only posted an abstract. For a response to Redfield’s comment, see my main blog:
http://genomicron.blogspot.com/2009/04/bad-argument-against-baseline-funding.html
I think this is a great idea, though it’s doubtful the economic logic would also apply for the United States (but it would be interesting to see a similar financial breakdown). I completely disagree that the lack of peer review for small grants would result in a dilution of good science, as some commenters on other sites have suggested. Those studies that didn’t produce results would simply stop after this initial funding and, in Canada at least, there would be no financial loss to the federal government. A lot of grants today are denied, not because they are shoddy proposals (though that is sometimes the case too) but because they are asking questions that may not have a lot of prior research to back up what they want to do. Through this kind of approach, preliminary research that seeks to push the boundaries could get a foothold and the next really innovative studies might get their start in this way.
I wrote another post about this