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Many of these people will leave for academia. Some of them have spare time, or maybe will have spare time after their kids are grown, or will be able to retire

Many of these people will leave for academia. Some of them have spare time, or maybe will have spare time after their kids are grown, or will be able to retire early. Then they could become citizen scientists [1], independent scientists [2], etc. Like independent film or video games, they couldn't compete head-on with big budget research. But they could presumably make progress in areas ignored by them: longer term, more fundamental research for example. When I was a postdoc at MIT, it was common for the grad students to want to have a "lunatic fringe" track at conferences or an "unconvential ideas" seminar. But once you're in the heirarchy/buerocracy of academia, you understand why those don't exist. Perhaps independent scientists could actually do them? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_scientist

neuromantik8086 10y ago
This is why I'm a fan of open data / data sharing, and why I wish federal grants would more emphasize intermediate steps that could lead to papers rather than the production of papers themselves. The barriers to data collection are quite large (it's at least $1 million to acquire an MRI scanner in my field, neuroimaging; a huge fixed cost that most individuals would never be able to afford), but the cost of hosting those data once they're acquired is trivial. Once up on the net and publicly shared, anyone can take a crack at the the data and see what they can find.
- alex_hirner 10y ago
  Funding bodies emphasize data sharing more and more. However, that is along or after a publication. No one has figured out academic attribution of data-only in a satisfactory way yet, but some noteworthy attempts exist. E.g. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/new-data-journal-lets-researchers-share-their-data-open-access https://www.elsevier.com/connect/new-data-journal-lets-resea...

neuromantik8086 10y ago

This is why I'm a fan of open data / data sharing, and why I wish federal grants would more emphasize intermediate steps that could lead to papers rather than the production of papers themselves. The barriers to data collection are quite large (it's at least $1 million to acquire an MRI scanner in my field, neuroimaging; a huge fixed cost that most individuals would never be able to afford), but the cost of hosting those data once they're acquired is trivial. Once up on the net and publicly shared, anyone can take a crack at the the data and see what they can find.

alex_hirner 10y ago
Funding bodies emphasize data sharing more and more. However, that is along or after a publication. No one has figured out academic attribution of data-only in a satisfactory way yet, but some noteworthy attempts exist. E.g. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/new-data-journal-lets-researchers-share-their-data-open-access https://www.elsevier.com/connect/new-data-journal-lets-resea...