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I never experienced anything like this during the course of my government funded research. Nor did I hear of anyone else experiencing anything like this. Of cou
by xadhominemx 4y ago
I never experienced anything like this during the course of my government funded research. Nor did I hear of anyone else experiencing anything like this. Of course, your topic area has to align with government funders’ interests… but in my experience the conclusions do not.
- verisimi 4y agoBut if your conclusions do not align with the funders desires, would your research see the light of day? If you have that much money that you can fund lots of studies, the only ones that will proceed are the ones in support of whatever-it-is.
- BeetleB 4y ago> But if your conclusions do not align with the funders desires, would your research see the light of day? In academia: Yes. The number of grants that require pre-publishing approval from funding agency is extremely tiny. I never encountered one while in academia.
- xadhominemx 4y agoIf your topic area aligns with your government funders interests but your conclusions do not, it usually means you were working on a scientific dead end anyway
- yodon 4y ago> But if your conclusions do not align with the funders desires, would your research see the light of day? If you are in academic science doing publicly funded academic research, as most academics do, then yes, your funding agency does want you to get the results published, period. The conspiracy theories you've been led to believe are just that, conspiracy theories, not the objective realities of those doing the work.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoIt's not a matter of publishing, it's a matter of funding the research in the first place. What academic field are you in where this isn't a problem? Even something as seemingly inconspicuous as physics research is highly political. Researchers know the ideas that one better doesn't question if one cares about job security. Or put in a more positive way: You better look into -current list of hype topics- if you want to continue getting funded, being cited and staying relevant. The problem with "academic science" as you call it is that it's mostly academic and not enough science.
- yodon 4y agoFunding is always going to be preferentially available for the things that people are interested in. That's true in all aspects of life, not just in science. If you want to challenge the Standard Model in Physics, of course you're going to have to work harder to get funding. That's because the betting money is of the opinion it's probably at least mostly correct. That rational allocation of funds bias doesn't prevent you from doing research or from getting it published, it just says that yes, if you want to challenge the prevailing wisdom you're going to have to work pretty hard to pull it off and convince people the standard model of the field is wrong.
- protomyth 4y agoI take it you never had a grant director run afoul of one of the consulting firms on I Street who didn't get the follow-on evaluation contract? 25 years and I'm still a bit peeved about how politics and who gets what makes government research such a pain in the butt. Every agency has its prejudices also which leads to some shenanigans. Sorta off topic tip: if you are writing government grants and are in a position to become a reader, then do so. It gives you an idea how they thinks, tells you what words / wording will get your grant down-voted, and it gives you some good contacts. Had relatives do that, but went a different career direction.