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Free Science Campaign: Comments

This comments page is to discuss the issues raised by the campaign, 'Fund Science as a Public Good'. To contribute a comment, email here.

Philip Moriarty, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham

'Reclaiming Academia from Post-Academia' (.pdf), in Nature Nanotechnology, February 2008

Also, see the debate, 'Public Science: A Public Good?', held in Portcullis House recently

Prof. Phil Brookes, 161 Strathmore Avenue, Luton, Beds LU1 3QR

(The views expressed are those of the author and not those of UK Universities or Research Institutions).

There is now an endless search for funding by senior scientists, who, except in rare cases, spend most of their time writing interminable grant proposals in the hope (often fruitless) of obtaining short-term funding (typically 3 years) for their research. There is a massive and expensive bureaucracy involved in the grant application procedure (even down to the font size and type, number of words, pages and so on), evaluation of the proposals and selecting the ‘best’ projects. About 1 in 4 are funded which means that 75 % of the scientists who apply have wasted both their time and much scarce public money.

When a grant is won, a newly qualified graduate (3 or 4 years study required) or post-doctoral researcher (add another 3 or 4 years training) is finally appointed to the research leader’s group, following prolonged advertising and selective interviews. Funded grant extensions, of even a few months, to finish even an exceptional piece of work, are, as far as I know, never granted. High-risk research that might possibly deliver much is seldom proposed and, in any case, almost certainly would not be funded even if it were.

While few jobs can guarantee much security these days, non-security is actually systematically built into the career structure of young graduates and post-doctoral scientists working in the public sector. Compare and contrast with the staff in the Research Councils who do the administrating of research grants. All in secure jobs, every one! Indeed, the Research Councils employ a considerable proportion of younger research scientists, who have left scientific research just for such security.

Virtually all young scientists begin their career by being appointed to one of these research grants, as described above. After about 2 years, each has to make a judgement, and it is not a scientific one. He or she has to estimate the chances of their boss being good enough (or lucky enough) to obtain another grant at just the time the original grant expires, to ensure continuity of their career – if only for the next three years!

Many of our finest young brains move out of science at this stage as the realisation dawns that, to do otherwise, will lock them into an interminable lottery. When they leave, often before a project is completed, it can easily mean the waste of the entire project. In every one of such cases the result is an appalling waste of efficiency, tax-payer’s money and sheer talent.

This system is supposed to be an improvement on the previous one - ‘more efficient’ is the phrase often quoted. Yet, scientists near the end of their career, such as myself, have never had to personally experience it. I often wonder if it would have survived even this far if we had. I simply do not know any senior research scientist held in high regard by his or her peers who does not regard the current ‘top down’ system of research management and funding with both quiet contempt and considerable disillusionment.

We were appointed under a different system, where continuity of employment was, effectively, guaranteed. Then a senior scientist may have had one or more junior scientists under them and, to a large extent, they were free to persue research topics of their choosing. Such relationships could easily last for twenty or even thirty years and the accumulated expertise was often formidable. This is how true world experts emerged. We were independently and rigorously evaluated every few years but not micro-managed as now. We had considerable scientific freedom. Yes, even to make mistakes sometimes.

Now we, the last of the old regime, obtain the grants, or lose our jobs if we cannot, then expect young scientists to thrive and prosper under conditions of perpetual financial and career uncertainty that we, appointed under a different system of permanent employment, never dreamed could possibly exist.

Instead, why not give grants to Universities and Institutes for the majority of their research on the basis of their track record, ensuring that there is good leadership, and actually trust them to do good work. As now and as previously, they could be independently assessed every 4 or 5 years and changes made if groups are not producing and publishing work of an international standard. Then short-term grants really could be used well – permitting, for example, speculative research in specific areas, or to permit changes in direction.

This is actually really suggesting a move back to something approaching what came before. It was criticised because it appeared too safe and some ‘dead wood’ took advantage. Such people were rare though. Most scientists are incredibly enthusiastic about their own research – and younger ones are certainly no exception. It is difficult for outside forces to suppress our enthusiasm and fascination for scientific research. The current system is doing its best to achieve it though. Examples abound to prove that this is the case!

Toby Mottram, agricultural engineer

The Thinkpiece by Tom Addiscott is a timely reminder of how the seemingly intractable problems in agriculture and how to feed the world were solved for the last generation by research institutes funded by government. In recent years as confidence in food supply rose the importance of agricultural research has been downgraded to being a minor and unfashionable sub-set of biological research. The research council for biology BBSRC has been taken over by academic scientists with no interest in applied research. Money has been poured into science to little good effect. The balance of research effort has been diverted away from research institutes such as Rothamstead to university departments. World famous agricultural research institutions (Silsoe and Roslin) have been closed or forced into the unwilling arms of universities. In agriculture we have two options to improve productivity and reduce environmental impact, we can manage better or we can breed improved plants or animals. Academic fashion has pushed genetic solutions at the expense of doing the difficult (because it is multi-disciplined) management applied science. Funding decisions have been put in the hands of academics rather than understaffed government departments. We are now incapable of directing science effort towards pressing problems. Too much work is pushed onto inexperienced, often overseas, PhD students. Experienced scientists who might “play” to find answers are tied up in administration chasing funds. Urgent reform is needed to save science from the academics who are incapable of governing it.

[Submitted by Tom Addiscott: 'John R. Philip was a distinguished Australian soil physicist and mathematician. He was a man of forthright views, notably about managerialism. He died in 1999 but I would like to think that, had he still been with us, he might have made a contribution similar to that below, which is from: Philip,. J.R. 1991. Soils, natural science and models, Soil Science, 151, 91-98.']

"I have much enjoyed Harvard, and I shall be grateful always for the pleasures and benefits of my sojourns there. But I believe Harvard deserves much blame for the sad state of the administration of scientific research and academic undertakings throughout the Western world.

In 1908 Harvard set up the Graduate School of Business Administration. At the time it no doubt seemed a useful and worthy notion to bestow on the brutal world of commerce the refining influence of Harvard academia. But Harvard, like Frankenstein, has made a monster. By the 1940s management had become the thrust of the Harvard Business School, and management continues to be enshrined as its central theme and its gift to humanity. Well-scrubbed young MBA's march out across the world spreading a management doctrine based on the totally false premises that what is important about all tasks is what they have in common, and that the bottom line must be measured and expressed in dollars.

Even when the task is as obviously unique and peculiar as scientific research, these disciples are not diverted from their doctrine and their purpose: they simply outdo Procrustes in lopping and stretching the anatomy of research to fit a schema based on the freezing of peas or the bottling of beer.

The consequences for science of instituting managerialism are saddening to behold…."