Bishop Hill A new approach to science funding
May 13, 2011 Bureaucrats I wondered earlier if it would ever be possible to separate scientists from the perverse incentives that encourage them to hype their work and work against the interests of the people who are paying for them. (I'm not saying that scientists necessarily work against the public interest, although some clearly do - simply that this is the direction that their incentives push them)
By strange coincidence Susan Greenfield, the former head of the Royal Institution has come up with a pretty radical set of suggestions that would at least improve things. Firstly she wants to abolish the research councils and divide the pot of research money up between researchers. Secondly, and perhaps more practically, she suggests getting venture capitalists to fund research.
Both of these suggestions would reduce the incentives to work against the public. Quite how practical they are, I'm not sure, but the ideas are certainly worth a look.
Reader Comments (23)
With regard the venture financing, an important consideration would be time-to-commercialization. VCs fund lots of early stage development now. But the term 'research' usually implies work that is many years from commercialization. If the expectation is that a liquidity event is more than 10 years out, then I don't see how a venture capital model could work.
Don't change the system, change the people. There's no system that can control people who lack basic honesty or a sense of duty.
There's nothing new in Susan Greenfield's proposals. I believe Canadian Science used to be funded this way, with research funds allocated amongst all the active researchers. I also have in the back of my mind a distant memory that before the UK Research Councils were set up a review of research funding and research effectiveness in the UK was carried out. The final conclusion was that distributing money as Susan Greenfield suggests would result in greater research and productivity. If any one can point me to a reference or source for this early review I'd be grateful.
On a sobering note, and still related to science funding, Research Councils UK (RCUK), have announced that in future bids for capital support for major equipment attached to research grants would be limited to 10k pounds maximum. This would buy you maybe a basic GC system but not much else!
I consider the involvement of venture capitalists to be a terribly bad idea.
Results of research which receive one penny of public money, either directly or indirectly (for example, taking place at publicly funded universities) should never be subject to copyright or patent protection. That would make the whole thing very unattractive to venture capitalists, which IMHO would be a GOOD THING.
Firstly she wants to abolish the research councils and divide the pot of research money up between researchers. Secondly, and perhaps more practically, she suggests getting venture capitalists to fund research.
Both of these suggestions would reduce the incentives to work against the public.
I don't know about the first suggestion, but the second one has two problems. Firstly, the premise clearly states that government funded scientists are working against the public. That is a very bold claim to make. Any such claim must have substantial evidence supporting it. The CAGW mess by itself isn't enough to prove the point against public science funding in general, but it certainly offers a powerful argument to cut funding to CAGW science and institutions in particular.
Secondly, I can't believe anyone would think venture capitalists would have the public interests in mind more than state institutions. Venture capitalists are like gold diggers. They only put their money where they think they'll make the greatest profit. The fact that they have shown little interest in developing a space program despite the governments clearing the path for them is a case in point. That they have thoroughly infiltrated pharmaceutical funding and corrupted the science is another.
Also, venture capitalism has shown little interest in CAGW science and, whenever they have done so, it has been to capitalise on the CAGW fears and to extract maximum concessions and subsidies from the public purse. An egregious example of this is the 'scientific' Catlin Arctic Survey which regularly ventures to the icy North to prospect for more CAGW on behalf of their private sponsors, an insurance company.
The problem is, there is a cadre of scientists who feel that science output should not stand or fall by the way depending on its merit, but the ability to attract funding be in itself, considered a metric for scientific merit.
Therefore people who are good 'people persons', good time managers, efficient slave drivers, good schmoozers, smilers, public speakers etc, all become scientists. Once these kind of people become scientists, they insist on using the granting system to keep out anyone who don't fit this mould, whom they see as losers. They promote their own kind because they 'see' the 'potential' in them. These are the same people who take one idea, divide it into ten parts and then write two hundred papers from it.
People keep talking about the 'great advances' made in science in the recent two centuries. It think that is mistaken. The reality is that there are lots of people working at odds and slowing down progress (in ideas, that is).
The word 'academic' means literally, 'useless'. Only the totally 'useless' people come up with the best science. People like Michael Mann, on the other hand, come up with lots of useful stuff indeed.
Michael Crichton got it right in his 2003 Caltech Michelin Lecture, viz.
"....Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups.
In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore with what seriousness we must address this...."
Unfortunately, considering the vested political interests involved, I wouldn't hold my breath!
Unusually, I agree with Lady Greenfield about cutting large group and multi-centre grants - some of the greatest waste in funding is for such anomalous projects. I would also agree with much else of what she says - as someone in a non-Russell group university (though I'm sure I would think otherwise if I weren't).
Re climate science, I don't think this would make any difference how it is funded (though appreciate Critchley's interesting ideas noted above), and the suggestions by Greenfield are certainly not inspired by any problems in climate science.
sHx wrote:
"Venture capitalists are like gold diggers. They only put their money where they think they'll make the greatest profit."
Haven't you heard of the human genome project? It reached its goal a lot sooner than it would have done because Craig Venter managed to raise private capital to finance innovative methods of gene sequencing that he had developed. The private project also stimulated researchers on the publicly financed one to speed up their own work. Another recent example is the work of the X Prize Foundation in stimulating space research.
I certainly do not think that the British government should stop financing scientific research but it is undesirable for British science to be too dependent on the public purse.
sHx wrote:
"Venture capitalists are like gold diggers. They only put their money where they think they'll make the greatest profit."
It is in their job description, I hope!
It should also be the case in the academic world, where "most profit" means academic progress, a greater understanding, a better theory, even giving your name to a new physical law. Why do research in an area where there is little point? To keep in with the In-crowd? Ah, I see the problem.
The difficulty is what process and what criteria should be used to allocate research funds to the academic participants, if indeed they get any funding.
Showing that research is being done to the detriment of science and/or the people would probably require more research! So part of the answer is to ensure funding for opposing ideas and the opportunity for discussion to take place. I don't think that it would always require all sides to be given money for large experimentation. It would have helped with CAGW if the sceptics had had access to the raw data, were involved in meaningful discussions and had access to public communication; they didn't need to duplicate taking all of the temperature readings. However, if the BBC and learnered journals had been a little more even handed, the CAGW story might have been different.
DougS citing Crichton has it right. If the scientists know that someone is going to go over everything they do with a fine tooth comb and embarrass them if they put out the kind of crap that is standard for climate science, we'd get a lot less of the Mannian, Jonesian, Rahmstorfian nonsense.
Transparency, audit, replication, verification, validation -- just require scientists to meet the same standards that normal professionals face in the real world.
The profit motive is one of the main drivers of progress. Money profit is a simplified measure of success that people can understand and quantify. The most needed change to science funding is to REWARD the successful and hold the unsuccessful or the indolent accountable for loss. It is easier to do this with a private funding system than with a government system. History provides past examples.
Because the movie is out and it's topical, try Ayn Rand. "Atlas Shrugged"
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?... Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or the looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? ... Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into bread you need to survive tomorrow. ... Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values... Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account Overdrawn.'
In simple words, take the non-contributing people out of the funding flow. They are the lead in the saddle of progress.
"Results of research which receive one penny of public money, either directly or indirectly (for example, taking place at publicly funded universities) should never be subject to copyright or patent protection. That would make the whole thing very unattractive to venture capitalists, which IMHO would be a GOOD THING."--Philip Peake
I'm not disagreeing, but a 100% publicly owned pile of fertilizer is still a pile of fertilizer. We need at least some research results that fall in another category altogether, doubling the chance that we will end up with something that has actual use to society, including the creation of wealth.
Somewhat sheepishly I admit that I have worked my entire adult life as a scientist and I am quite grateful for all of the funding I have received from all sources, public and private. Without funding, I would have needed to get a real job as a practicing engineer or as a businessman. Perhaps I have misspent my life: I often ask myself if my supporters are getting or have gotten value for their money. It’s not an easy question to answer. In the end, I cannot guarantee results, only the effort.
I have enjoyed them comments posted here. It is amazing to find so many good ones all on one post. In particular, I wish to address a few of them:
mpaul: Correct. These are not patient or benevolent people. Venture cabalists demand quick and excessive returns on their investment. They refer to themselves as "Angel Investors." I'm sure you can work out the irony for yourself.
Philip Peake: Venture capitalist involvement is a bad idea. You are absolutely right: if they show up at your door, hide all your valuables.
sHx: Too right. The cure proposed is a mega virulent case of the disease.
Shub: 100 points for scoring a bulls-eye. Funding is a bad metric for contribution, but it is the one metric that one's managers easily understand. You don't even need to explain it to them. They never challenge it.
Roy: Good counter-balancing.
Here is a point that I think that should be made: we call too many things science that are actually something quite different. Being different, they should each be supported differently. Perhaps the following list provides some useful distinctions between closely allied but confused things:
Science: the set of things known or believed.
Technology: the set of things practiced.
Engineering: the application of things known and things practiced toward implementing solutions to problems.
Calculation: the important art of counting.
Discovery: the inexplicable art of recognition.
Invention: discovery of things not known or practiced.
Instruction: teaching of things known, believed, practiced or discovered.
Observation: documentation of the set of things perceived or measured.
Having dabbled in all of the above, I hope the distinctions are useful.
Interesting post Pluck (plucking interesting?) although, with my background over the last 15 years being in IP I would have to object to your definition of invention as the 'discovery of things not known or practised' as the simple act of discovering something is not necessarily in any way inventive.
What then is invention, I'd have to say it's something more nebulous than that, trying to avoid referring to any of the national or supra-national patents acts I'd say it has to involve the creative application of one or more known phenomena to arrive at something previously unknown, undiscovered or unthought of. A desperately imperfect definition, but it does try to capture the 'innovative spark' required to create an invention.
Pluck, If I admit that my funding came from the profits generated by the company I worked for, would you in return explain your mistrust of venture capital? Did someone frighten your mother with high returns when you were in utero?
As both a scientist and venture capitalist, perhaps I should comment. Greenfield's suggestion that VC fund research is naive; VC's fund business plans, not research. "Research project" is a dismissive term in my world. VC's support the creation of companies, which employ people, and, one hopes, returns something on the investment. Because this is a very risky game, expectations for returns are high on each deal, so that losses on others are recovered. In that way, returns to those who invest in VC funds (pension plans, insurance companies, etc) are attractive.
Angel investors are not VCs. They are generally wealthy individuals - usually successful entrepreneurs - interested in supporting very early stage company formation. Their expectations of returns are low, or ought to be.
If intellectual property is not protected in some manner, it has little competitive value in the marketplace. One might disagree with patenting, for instance, but jobs have to come from somewhere.
Some of the more acerbic comments above show lack of understanding of how useful technology actually escapes academic environments. It isn't easy to extract anything of value. Through various voluntary activities, I have informed access to perhaps >$2Bn of academic research funding. It is difficult to sort through the dross.
Finally, the UK has had a poor track record of creating anything like a viable VC industry, and the lastest downturn has not done any good, so perhaps some of the uninformed comments above are understandable.
I do like Crichton's angle, I have to say. The problem as it is now seems to me less to do with the source of the funding as it is the proximity of the funding to the researching scientist. This proximity is what can lead to advocacy influence. A change to the source of the funding is not actually changing the structure of the process at its weakest point and is not assured to improve or guarantee its integrity. Crichton has it, I think.
It seems to me that we need to separate (at least) two kinds of research.
1) Research that is aimed at testing a theory, such as climate change - or, indeed the big bang.
2) Research into making something that gets independently verified - a vaccine, or a faster transistor.
The second type of research is ultimately self verifying, but the first type really needs explicit provision to fund people supporting the opposite conclusion. Maybe if the climate change corruption ever really hits the fan, something like this might really happen!
Geoff Sherrington: I did not mean to offend anyone, and by-and-large, I agree with your comments about the responsibility that goes with accepting funding: you must perform what you promise. When you propose to conduct research, you cannot guarantee what you will discover: if you could it would not be research, it would be engineering. All you can guarantee is where you will look, what questions you will try and answer, how you will go about doing it, how long you will continue to look and how you will document the results. To secure funding, you need to provide rational for conducting the research based on expected or potential benefits, but you cannot guarantee that those benefits will be realized.
I have received public and private funding and actually prefer private funding: its more focused and aggressive and you can count on support when you need help because your sponsor has a stake in your success. That makes for a good partnership.
What frightens me, your term, is losing control of and rights to IP. That can be very damaging to future work.
Nick Darby: I seem to have offended more than one person. My apologies. Your point was that venture capitalism is about setting up companies and making money. I have no problem with people doing that. If that is their goal, that’s great. It’s not my goal. I love science and have done so as long as I can remember: my goal is simply to work with science. In my experience, a long-term commitment to research is required for it to be effective: patience and persistence are required which can be incompatible with the necessary haste of venture capital.
Regarding better ways of funding science I am impressed by this suggestion http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/how-a-scientific-integrity-act-could-shift-the-global-warming-debate/ particularly the bit about government funded prizes for anybody who finds mathematical errors in papers which influence public policy. If that had been done Mann's Hockey Stick would have been clobbered before it had left the starting gate.
X-Prizes for technological achievements are also far more effective (30-100 times) than grants for suitable cases. When you pay for results not just effort and pay anybopdy not just the great and good you get results.
As it is the relationship between conventional government funding and achievement actually seems to be negative - presumably because, as with CAGW, funding only goes to those prepared to reach the conclusions politicians have already decided on.
MackemX: your post compelled me to think a bit on a number of different levels. Your comment, coming from someone familiar with IP issues are very interesting. As I considered a response to your comment, I found that I had offended a number of people sensitive to criticisms of venture capital funding. Perhaps I had painted with too broad a brush. Truth is, I have seen and experienced the effect of such opportunism: it has a tendency to slay the goose that lays the golden egg, and often well before a good egg had been laid. On the basis of a few promising results, far too much is injected into capitalizing on them. This is characteristic of start-up companies. More mature organizations recognize (from long experience) that progression from lab to market is usually a long road with many setbacks.
That said, and allowing that not all cases of venture capital funding experience the difficulties I have observed, I wished to respond to some of your observations. You gave me considerable pause with your reference to the ‘innovative spark.’ Although I am author and primary inventor on a number of patents, national and ‘supranational,’ your comment confounded me a bit. Do I have an innovative spark? Well, no: not likely. Most people who meet casually me would probably miss it entirely. And that goes for most people who know me well.
Having spent 15 years in IP, you are familiar with basic requirements for novelty and not being obvious. Some of the most educative experiences of my life were spent prosecuting a few of my patents pro se . I learned a lot, and the Patent Examiners here in the USA were very helpful when I spoke with them. I travelled to Washington, D.C. (actually, Crystal City, Virginia) and they told me that I would probably craft stronger and broader patents with the help of professional patent agents or attorneys. They were right, of course. I told them that that was not my goal: I wanted to understand what made an innovation patentable so that I could do better on future patents. That was some time ago, but the lesson-learned is that inventors should never simply turn over there material to patent agents or attorneys. They need to work as hard to understand what the agents or attorneys do as the agents and attorneys do to understand the inventor’s work.
The innovative spark? I think, perhaps, the inventor discovers the science and the patent agent or attorney discovers the discovery.