3 ms·

Most? Really? Government grants don't fund more than half of scientific research, do they?

• robg 18y ago
  The budgets in 2008: NIH = $28B NSF = $6B That's $34B. While surely there's alot of private R&D (and more government), it's rare that I see a paper from industry, but then my field is biased against it. And there are private foundations. Does enough published research come from those private sources to outweigh publically funded studies? I wouldn't bet on it. Remember, there's a perpetual cycle in most public funding with publications. In order to get funded, you have to show a record of publishing. The priorities of private research would seem to be a very different threshold. Still, it's a solid point. You've paid for our research. Why should you have to pay to access our reports? To be fair though, I have yet to hear about complaints from journals regarding researchers who post their reports on their public websites. But that makes it hard to find things. Journals would surely squawk if there were alternative repositories.
  • hugh 18y ago
    Don't forget the Department of Energy and the various military funding agencies -- they fund an awful lot of external research as well (in addition to any unpublished stuff they might be doing internally). I'm sure the Department of Agriculture etc are also handing out plenty of grants in the relevant fields as well.
    • robg 18y ago
      Sure - that's what I meant by "more government". Problem is, I don't think you can simply look at their budgets - they do other things besides research - and their research efforts are likely much smaller. It would be interesting to see the research grant lines in their budgets if anyone knows or finds them.