4 ms·

Man, I just finished a day polishing our paper [1] as a response to the latest round of reviews, which were idiotic. A place for curiosity-driven research sound

by dash2 5y ago

Man, I just finished a day polishing our paper [1] as a response to the latest round of reviews, which were idiotic. A place for curiosity-driven research sounds great to me. If I could escape the politics, stupidity and bullshit of academic research! But I'm social science/behaviour genetics & these guys are curing cancer.... [1] https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/ueaeco/UEA-ECO-21-02_Updated.pdf https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/ueaeco/UEA-EC...

rscho 5y ago
Don't worry and no need for FOMO. I'm in clinical medicine and the situation is no better. And people thinking that curiosity is bankable in biomed research strike me as idealistic...
- beakerbreaker 5y ago
  I'm curious what you mean by bankable here? While I'd agree that there is idealism, it seems like reasonable efforts to cut through the catch-22 of funding nascent ideas (exemplified by the old chestnut about getting funding for work already done to do your new work under the table) and making stable career positions for folks who don't want to become a PI. I'd like to see what this really looks like after a couple years, but it doesn't seem completely naive.
  - rscho 5y ago
    I mean that the way we assess research output in the current system makes curiosity a liability. This means that even if investors are interested, the scientific community will judge the output from this institute as inferior. Except if the curiosity part is just for show, which I strongly suspect. Investors want results.
    - beakerbreaker 5y ago
      I broadly agree, and it's clear they are limiting the scope of curiosity to some directed areas and the long term research agenda makes me think there is an expectation of more directed follow-up. "Curiosity" is likely code for "many more 'fishing expeditions' from low friction funding with the expectation that the likely low hit rate will still have reasonable number of repeatable, translatable findings after eight years". I would personally wager that is correct. It will be interesting to see the output of this funding mindset more reminiscent of VCs but with a timespan that biological research programs require.
dekhn 5y ago
The issue is going to be that this institute will have a very small number of positions for what is incredibly desirable research circumstances, so it will be highly selected, and only the "best" or "hottest" researchers will qualify. I would get great work done under these conditions but I'd never rise high enough in the application pool to be noticed.
- rscho 5y ago
  > only the "best" or "hottest" researchers I'm pretty sure this subset is very similar to the 'least curious' subset...
jmeister 5y ago
You could apply to FastGrants, they seem to fund all kinds of people, from highschool hackers to tenured professors.

by dash2 5y ago

rscho 5y ago

Don't worry and no need for FOMO. I'm in clinical medicine and the situation is no better. And people thinking that curiosity is bankable in biomed research strike me as idealistic...

beakerbreaker 5y ago
I'm curious what you mean by bankable here? While I'd agree that there is idealism, it seems like reasonable efforts to cut through the catch-22 of funding nascent ideas (exemplified by the old chestnut about getting funding for work already done to do your new work under the table) and making stable career positions for folks who don't want to become a PI. I'd like to see what this really looks like after a couple years, but it doesn't seem completely naive.
- rscho 5y ago
  I mean that the way we assess research output in the current system makes curiosity a liability. This means that even if investors are interested, the scientific community will judge the output from this institute as inferior. Except if the curiosity part is just for show, which I strongly suspect. Investors want results.
  - beakerbreaker 5y ago
    I broadly agree, and it's clear they are limiting the scope of curiosity to some directed areas and the long term research agenda makes me think there is an expectation of more directed follow-up. "Curiosity" is likely code for "many more 'fishing expeditions' from low friction funding with the expectation that the likely low hit rate will still have reasonable number of repeatable, translatable findings after eight years". I would personally wager that is correct. It will be interesting to see the output of this funding mindset more reminiscent of VCs but with a timespan that biological research programs require.

dekhn 5y ago

The issue is going to be that this institute will have a very small number of positions for what is incredibly desirable research circumstances, so it will be highly selected, and only the "best" or "hottest" researchers will qualify. I would get great work done under these conditions but I'd never rise high enough in the application pool to be noticed.

rscho 5y ago
> only the "best" or "hottest" researchers I'm pretty sure this subset is very similar to the 'least curious' subset...

jmeister 5y ago

You could apply to FastGrants, they seem to fund all kinds of people, from highschool hackers to tenured professors.