It isn’t just research grants, try applying for a grant from HRSDC or Environment Canada, which have a more is safer approach to process. After the HRDC scandal circa 2001, the Canadian government began to use a gruelling contribution agreement process, that forces organizations to eseentially begin their projects, with no source of funding, in order to predict the costs and results. I’d have no problem with this, except the government A) almost always requires matching funding, and b) never allows the organizatiosn to recoup the cost of developing the proposals. Only the work performed after the agreement is signed can be funded.

Compare that for example with a for-profit supplier to the government, which would be able to recoup those development costs as profit, but health, environmental, education and development groups that “supply” innovative projects and services, have hidden costs forced onto them by the process?

From a contrarian point of view, making the initial proposal very costly to prepare will weed out trivial submissions and to force all submissions into the approved mold, saving the bureaucracy.

Of course, it is obviously easier on scientists to leave bags of money on the steps for anyone in particular to pick up and enjoy, but it is wise not to force discussions on the cost/benefit of this kind of activity too far.

Keep in mind the paper does not say that we should dispense with the peer-review process on the whole, merely for “baseline” grants, which are quite small in the grand scheme of research funding. It’s also important to remember that in order to receive larger grants, pilot data can be incredibly helpful, but without any funding pilot data is very hard to collect. Thus giving every *qualified* applicant a baseline grant might also help researchers collect pilot data and decide whether or not it is worth applying for a larger grant in this same area of investigation, or whether the area should be abandoned.

Some people will obviously milk such a system, but I would rather look at ways to limit people taking advantage of such a system rather than discounting the system outright.

A couple of points from a university scientist who has been funded by NSERC for many years and who has also served on a peer grant review committee (committee 18 -ecology and evolution). First, it is not true that “sifting through grant applications in peer review to decide which are worthy” is a cost borne only by NSERC. These grant applications are read and evaluated by review committees made up of university researchers (8 when I served for my committee). This involves several hundred hours of work per person per year and the researchers on these committees are not paid a cent for this work. We do it because we know that to do otherwise would destroy the system as currently constructed.
Having said that, I am not in favour of the proposal in the article. No one can predict, before the research is complete, if the result will produce a Nobel prize or not. However, we can make reasonable predictions of competence and creativity based on a researcher’s past research performance as judged from peer-reviewed publications and subsequent citation impact within the research area. A much simpler – and less expensive – system would be to provide grant amounts per researcher on a short (say, 3 year) time frame based on past performance without reviewing the research details that form most of the grant application. This would consist of (i) numbers of graduate students successfully produced, (ii) numbers of peer-reviewed publications and (iii) citation rates of the researcher’s papers. People who are good at converting grant money into productive and influential scientific publications will be well funded. People who cannot do this would not be funded. It would take about 5 minutes to judge this based on a standard formula.

I hate bureaucracy, but I hate funding anything where people feel they have an automatic right to government money.

So either way the issue works out is fine by me.

It is interesting how much distrust of scientists is expressed in some of the above comments, by people who may have sat on the hiring, promotion and tenure committees of the people they are complaining about, and let them stay. If the deadwood hasn’t been screened out by these three processes, which are of much greater breadth, depth and duration than any grant committee has time for, then the problem lies deeper: in a way, universities have abrogated their responsibilities in selecting their own to the granting committees, which are not equipped to do that job.

To me the primary issue is that of freedom and responsibility to explore versus control by peers and administrators. This control stifles innovation. $30,000/year is perhaps 30% of a university professor’s salary. In just about any other job in this world, the institution one works for is expected to provide the means to do the job. As professors we are told that teaching, service and research are what we’re judged on. But we must first beg for the funds to do our work. As we are our peers, this leads to a system of terribly uneven distribution of the available funds via simple positive feedback mechanisms. Baseline funding, utilizing perhaps 50% of the funding agencies’ money, would greatly enhance innovation. The other 50% can stand in the current system of peer review, allowing more ambitious projects to compete with one another, each perhaps well designed through the careful use of baseline funding.

If you haven’t read:

Gordon, R. & B.J. Poulin (2009). Cost of the NSERC science grant peer review system exceeds the cost of giving every qualified researcher a baseline grant. Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance 16(1), 1-28.

ask for a reprint. -Dick Gordon, gordonr@cc.umanitoba.ca

Typo:
Thee are two hypotheses…