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I have been thinking recently how to reform the science system here in germany, which is somewhat similar to the system in the US. What I think is impossible is

I have been thinking recently how to reform the science system here in germany, which is somewhat similar to the system in the US. What I think is impossible is to completely eliminate the grant chasing for the early career scientist. It's just that there's more supply than demand in a lot of sciences and not everyone can make it, if we try to give everyone a grant we end up with grants that are not really paying for anything. What I think would be an improvement would be a different system where there's a clear path from grant-based funding to a continuous stream of funding, with different funding levels, where one gets periodically reviewed and demoted/continued/raised, so your funding does not completely dry up after a few year (I imagined it like the sports leagues, where you play in different levels and depending on your performance you get relegated from the league) and you can really plan long-term. So one can continue the competitiveness and the role of funding bodies/institutions where the scientist work at while giving them the ability to plan long-term and maybe pursue more risky ideas. There will always be the ones that fall through the cracks. We somehow need to figure out who to give the money to and we will end up with someone who deserved but did not get the money. I don't know who reviews the grant in the US, but here at least with some funding bodies the scientist manage it themselves (dfg) and I don't think one can easily improve on it.

lumost 6y ago
This is a common problem in many commodity markets. If creating new supply is inexpensive, and all market participants have functionally equivalent technology and operational expertise. New supply will always emerge to eat away any margin that a market participant may have. (Think Restaurants, farming, small-time delivery/construction, uber driving) If you follow this through to the extreme you end up with a vicious cycle of boom/bust where any demand opportunity that emerges is crushed under 10x the supply increase. The market becomes unstable as new participants have clean balance sheets and older participants go into debt that cannot be paid. Supply is only maintained through the addition of new market participants willing to lose their capital or burn their balance sheet on debt in a private parallel to the tragedy of the commons. One traditional solution that keeps these markets stable, and market participants from simply bankrupting every few years is to introduce an artificial supply cap. In construction, and small business markets this task is often performed by the zoning board, or a local licensing board. In the case of larger markets participants may form cartels such as in OPEC, Maple Syrup, or international shipping. In the case of science, the task of supply control traditional fell on admissions committees and the availability of permanent tenure tracked professorships. This mechanism broke down with the introduction of non-tenure track positions, and the external funding of grad-students. Universities now have every incentive to flood the market with vastly more scientists than can reasonably be funded - which combined with the inherent riskiness of scientific research means we have a combination of science "bankruptcies" and low-risk, low-quality academic research to show for it. I'd much rather see fewer tenured professors ridiculed for their oddball research than an army of post-docs and grad students performing meaningless research which is suitable for publishing.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  > If you follow this through to the extreme you end up with a vicious cycle of boom/bust where any demand opportunity that emerges is crushed under 10x the supply increase. The market becomes unstable as new participants have clean balance sheets and older participants go into debt that cannot be paid. Supply is only maintained through the addition of new market participants willing to lose their capital or burn their balance sheet on debt in a private parallel to the tragedy of the commons. You've described the indie games industry.

lumost 6y ago

This is a common problem in many commodity markets. If creating new supply is inexpensive, and all market participants have functionally equivalent technology and operational expertise. New supply will always emerge to eat away any margin that a market participant may have. (Think Restaurants, farming, small-time delivery/construction, uber driving) If you follow this through to the extreme you end up with a vicious cycle of boom/bust where any demand opportunity that emerges is crushed under 10x the supply increase. The market becomes unstable as new participants have clean balance sheets and older participants go into debt that cannot be paid. Supply is only maintained through the addition of new market participants willing to lose their capital or burn their balance sheet on debt in a private parallel to the tragedy of the commons. One traditional solution that keeps these markets stable, and market participants from simply bankrupting every few years is to introduce an artificial supply cap. In construction, and small business markets this task is often performed by the zoning board, or a local licensing board. In the case of larger markets participants may form cartels such as in OPEC, Maple Syrup, or international shipping. In the case of science, the task of supply control traditional fell on admissions committees and the availability of permanent tenure tracked professorships. This mechanism broke down with the introduction of non-tenure track positions, and the external funding of grad-students. Universities now have every incentive to flood the market with vastly more scientists than can reasonably be funded - which combined with the inherent riskiness of scientific research means we have a combination of science "bankruptcies" and low-risk, low-quality academic research to show for it. I'd much rather see fewer tenured professors ridiculed for their oddball research than an army of post-docs and grad students performing meaningless research which is suitable for publishing.

burntoutfire 6y ago
> If you follow this through to the extreme you end up with a vicious cycle of boom/bust where any demand opportunity that emerges is crushed under 10x the supply increase. The market becomes unstable as new participants have clean balance sheets and older participants go into debt that cannot be paid. Supply is only maintained through the addition of new market participants willing to lose their capital or burn their balance sheet on debt in a private parallel to the tragedy of the commons. You've described the indie games industry.