First challenge: Funding

This is the first challenge at the DDA Winter School for postdocs. One of the most concerning aspects about being a scientist is raising funding for one’s work. Government agencies and private foundations are the most common bodies funding scientific research. Resources are most often given to hot topics, and scientists often have a greater chance to receive funding when they have been funded previously, creating a hypercompetitive research environment where funding for basic science is diminished and big grant receivers tend to swallow up large parts of the funds available. Furthermore, foundations tend to give funds to topics within their field/scope of interest, which can lead to scientists overextending the relevance of their work or overselling their project.
What constitutes fair prioritization of public, foundation and industry funding? Within the prioritized areas, how can funds be distributed fairly? How can the system be redesigned to more fairly distribute funding? What actions can scientists take to reform the system? Would a more narrow specification of individual grants be a solution to diversify who receives funding? Or would an interesting alternative be letting the public have full or partial influence on the decision-making regarding prioritization of research funding, e.g., by public referendum? Such a mechanism would increase public awareness regarding research, but also risk subjective voting, where a disease in the family could be a decision trigger or where flying to Mars sounds more intriguing than understanding mitochondrial biology.