An academic knows well that grants and other forms of financing are their lifeblood. It’s also how the government chooses its priorities within academia. Admit

An academic knows well that grants and other forms of financing are their lifeblood. It’s also how the government chooses its priorities within academia. Admittedly, I don’t know anything about who was on the budget committee to which Dijkstra wrote this letter. But it is just ordinary for academics to write proposals outlining their priorities in hopes that the grant/budget/financing committee will bite.