DailyDirt: New Models For (Not) Funding Science?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
In lean times like these, it's getting tougher to get funding for science and technology research, especially for innovative but high-risk ideas. It's no surprise that both the government and the private sector seem to feel more comfortable investing their money in more conservative "sure thing" efforts these days. While the scientific funding system is far from perfect, some of the attempts to "fix" it are making it even worse. Here are just a few (good and bad) examples.- Canada's scientific research and development agency, the National Research Council, has announced that it will now only conduct research that has "social or economic gain." Apparently, the President of the NRC actually said, "Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value." Unfortunately, that's one giant leap backwards for mankind. [url]
- U.S. House of Representatives chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) is proposing to replace the National Science Foundation's peer review process with a new set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. Smith's "High Quality Research Act" would require the NSF to judge grants based on three criteria -- that the research will: advance national health, prosperity, welfare, and security; solve problems that are important to society at large; and not duplicate other research projects being funded by the government. [url]
- On a more positive note, the Thiel Foundation's Breakout Labs is aiming to change the way early-stage science is funded. Their grants of up to $350,000 over 1-2 years will enable startups to chase some risky ideas with groundbreaking potential, returning a small percentage of any commercial success back to Breakout Labs to help fund the future ventures. [url]
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Filed Under: breakout labs, canada, discovery, funding, grants, innovation, research, science
Companies: nrc, nsf, thiel foundation
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the LHC is useless
"If money is all you care about, then money is all you will get." -- Princess Leia
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I begin to suspect that we have passed Peak Civilization.
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On the other hand
This isn't to say that the first two proposals are problem free, but I think it isn't unreasonable for taxpayer funds to ask that something other than articles locked up behind Elsevier paywalls is the outcome of the research.
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Re: On the other hand
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Choosing Research
And yet the entire field of modern biology - everything from cloning to the promising leukemia cures to the DNA fingerprinting so loved by prosecutors and police departments - stems from the isolation of this organism's ( Thermus aquaticus) dna-copying protein, Taq polymerase.
We hijack this protein and put it to use in PCR, the technique by which even a single strand of dna can be amplified (copied) billionfold or more so that it can be easily sequenced and otherwise manipulated.
This is a choice example, obviously. No, not everything pans out. But one man's study of an obscure bacteria in Yellowstone leads nearly directly - twenty years later - to a fundamental new technique for which the inventors win a Nobel prize. And it wouldn't have been funded if the NSF was forced to operate under the newly proposed rules.
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Re: Choosing Research
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Re: Choosing Research
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wow, how short sighted !!!, there is no way of telling what will become valuable, the discovery of the humble battery had no application for the first 100 years of it's existence. !!
what about fundamental physics, X-rays were something that at first had no practical applications, but not now.
You could provide an endless list of scientific discoveries that had no "value" at the time, that have become absolutely critical and useful now.
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Re:
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Fermi Lab
Q. What does Fermi Lab contribute to the defence of the United States?
A. It makes the United States worth defending!
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