FUNDING SCIENCE OR FUNDING A WORKFORCE? |
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POST DATE
January 25, 2007, 3 PM
POSTED BY
Geoff Davis
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I'm in the process of tracking down some data to help me figure out what's really going on with the NIH grant acceptance rates. In the process, I had an interesting conversation with a friend at NIH yesterday. He tells me that he's seen some data that suggest that a lot of the new applications are not from new, first-time applicants, but rather from older people who have applied before but not for a long time. That's consistent with my speculation here that a lot of this new grant activity comes from people being lured in by all the new money. If this bears out (and I suspect that it will), it would confirm the (fairly obvious) idea that new money attracts new applicants and pushes down acceptance rates unless numbers of grants are increased at the same time as amounts. NSF appears to be having similar issues despite a fairly substantial growth in overall funding over the last 5 years (about 25%). (I learned that the Science Blogging Conference this past weekend that the Canadian equivalent of NIH is also experiencing falling approval rates; I'd be very curious to learn if this is just budget cuts or another example of starvation in times of plenty.) I think the bottom line is that NIH is eventually going to have to acknowledge basic concepts of supply and demand and rethink how it allocates grant money. I asked my friend what he thought of the idea of a pool of smaller grants, as was suggested by several commenters on an earlier post. His answer was telling: basically that NIH sees its primary mission as supporting research to cure diseases, etc, not "supporting a workforce". I personally don't see these as quite so distinct, but I'm not in charge. I think this view is straight out of Kuhn; I need to ask around to see how widespread this idea is. My interpretation is that:
That tells me that arguments for change need to be grounded in ideas about what's good for science, not what's good for the workforce. |
*His answer was telling: basically that NIH sees its primary mission as supporting research to cure diseases, etc, not "supporting a workforce"*
How incredibly short-sighted. Those huge labs full of post-docs are fed from other smaller graduate programs. Starving smaller programs of grant funding is going to eventually kill off those graduate programs and dry up the supply of trained researchers.
I will give him this: NIH funds mission-oriented research, and NSF's mandate is basic science. An agency concerned with basic science (including the scientific literacy of the general public) is going to be more receptive to arguments about the health of the scientific establishment. So maybe it is time to lobby for large-scale budget transfer from the NIH to the NSF.
Geoff, what's the "this" in the statement "I need to ask around to see how widespread this idea is."?
Maybe this helps: http://www.nih.gov/about/