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Addressing #1: Most academic research the government funds is in basic science in expert domains, e.g. intercellular communication, neural firing patterns, etc,

Addressing #1: Most academic research the government funds is in basic science in expert domains, e.g. intercellular communication, neural firing patterns, etc, and much of this basic science is exploratory. For most projects, it would be difficult for everyone to agree on the goal and metrics of a competition. Sure, this might work for high-profile projects, e.g. establish a map of some organism's genome or connectome, or applied projects like your examples, but prize-based competitions would be difficult to implement on a large-scale. On another note, who would judge these competitions? For most domain-specific research, it would be peers in those domains -- so not much would be changed. Addressing #2: This already exists. The government does contract out many tech projects, e.g. to Lockheed Martin or Boeing. Life science labs I've been associated with, have also received contracts from the NIH (as opposed to grants). While these aren't commission-based, these contracts are probably what you have in mind. Address #3: This also already happens to a degree, typically with public research universities. Especially when a new center opens, the state + federal government will give some minimum funds for the center or institute to keep their lights on. But no funding is ever "permanent", especially when you have politicians slashing research budgets. Finally, it's interestingly that you mention that these institutions would be more or less under the complete control by an executive director or a BOD. The article mentions that having individuals of such power over a field (as these executives would have) stifles change, and I agree. It would be too optimistic to believe that these executives would not pick and choose projects of their liking, which is actually pretty much what currently happens. Plus, not having to submit grants virtually guarantees less accountability.

bokonist 14y ago
#1 I agree that prize-based research only works in certain areas. That is why I would make it only one of the three ways to fund research. I think that any competition should be judged by outsiders, if the competition cannot be accurately judged by outsiders then it is not a good competition. For instance, a self driving car race can be judged by outsiders. For #3 the accountability comes from the board of directors. Right now the highest ranking professors are basically accountable to no one. If a field starts to stagnate, get to esoteric, or close off to new ideas, there is no one with the power to get it unstuck. The top professors do not have an incentive to get it unstuck, because they are the most successful in the status quo, their status is directly linked to the current direction of the field. An independent board of directors has no such perverse incentive. Also, each institution would be actually independent, unlike with the grant system in which grants are centrally allocated by a network of the existing professors. So if one institution goes the wrong direction, another institution might try and make its name by trying out a novel area of research.

bokonist 14y ago

#1 I agree that prize-based research only works in certain areas. That is why I would make it only one of the three ways to fund research. I think that any competition should be judged by outsiders, if the competition cannot be accurately judged by outsiders then it is not a good competition. For instance, a self driving car race can be judged by outsiders. For #3 the accountability comes from the board of directors. Right now the highest ranking professors are basically accountable to no one. If a field starts to stagnate, get to esoteric, or close off to new ideas, there is no one with the power to get it unstuck. The top professors do not have an incentive to get it unstuck, because they are the most successful in the status quo, their status is directly linked to the current direction of the field. An independent board of directors has no such perverse incentive. Also, each institution would be actually independent, unlike with the grant system in which grants are centrally allocated by a network of the existing professors. So if one institution goes the wrong direction, another institution might try and make its name by trying out a novel area of research.