The research process can often be a somewhat Kafka like experience of dead ends and false turns as you strive desperately for funding and backing for your project.  The notion of a smoothly running market where finance flows effortlessly towards those projects that are most deserving seems to be little but overtly dark humor.

So, it’s interesting to see what might come of a fascinating experiment in the Netherlands, where they are implementing an alternative funding process to try and reduce some of the paperwork and bureaucracy surrounding research.

The approach is following in the footsteps of healthcare pioneer Buurtzog in applying a strong dose of self-organization.  It would see funds initially divided equally among every scientist in the country.  The scientists would then be required to distribute half of their allocation to the scientist in their personal network that they feel is most deserving of financial support.

It’s part of a wider movement in the science world, with things such as Altmetrics deploying a wider range of more social factors in rating the influence of academic work that is looking to tap into the same sort of wisdom of the crowd.

Crowdfunding science

Current funding models seldom seem to take account that science is an increasingly collaborative and social affair, and the new approach is believed to have taken inspiration from the way Google approaches networks.  For instance, if a new website is built, Google don’t require it to be submitted, but instead gauge its importance from the impact the site makes on the network.

Numerous studies have highlighted the time pressures researchers currently face, with some suggesting that 30% of an academics time is spent trying to secure funding, thus squeezing out more productive tasks such as research itself or commercial collaboration.  It’s an issue that is probably common in many professions as we struggle to cope with administrative overload.

We’ve seen a number of scientific crowdfunding sites emerge that allow researchers to tap directly into the wishes of the general public, but not only have these platforms failed to really gain traction, but they also impart an administrative load in managing the campaigns.

This self-managed approach significantly reduces that and has the potential of better mapping funding with the real interactions and connections within the scientific community.  It does, of course, largely suppose that researchers will act rationally and honestly when they distribute the funds around their network.

It’s a similar approach to that adopted with ProSocial bonuses, where employees in companies are given a bonus that they can distribute to a colleague they feel is deserving.

The political and irrational nature of humans is a potential drawback of the system, and some researchers believe this may result in outcomes that are worse than the existing system.

It does certainly tap into the zeitgeist in the research community however.  Similar moves are afoot in areas such as peer review, with a number of platforms emerging to allow researchers to more easily comment on each others work, albeit some, such as PubPeer, have run into a few legal issues over the anonymous protection they offer to users.

Whilst it’s unlikely to be a perfect system, it will certainly be a fascinating one to follow.