A Longitude Prize for the twenty-first century
The UK Government’s new prize for substantial innovation to address pressing societal problems should be welcomed, says Martin Rees.
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Alternative modes of research funding: exceptions or growing trend?
Peer-review of projects dominates when it comes to decision on how to allocate funding for science. But is it really the best way?
This is important. You have £5.8 billion to spend on science things
How this money is invested could make a huge difference to our future, in the UK and to some extent beyond
Tobacco industry-funded research, peer review, and nannying
Aside from the occasional cigar (once every five years or so), I'm one of those smug "never smoked" gits. You then might think that I'm all for plain packaging, not publishing tobacco industry-funded research, and completely against the " normalization" of smoking via the evidently evil medium of e-cigarettes.
'Philanthropy Is no substitute for government funding'
There has been an upsurge in philanthropy for scientific research by America's billionaires. Still, in size and scope, philanthropy pales in comparison to public financing for science.
Computing a winner, fusion a loser in U.S. science budget
Follow our coverage of the 2015 budget request to Congress
Researchers propose alternative way to allocate science funding
1. Give all scientists an annual, unconditional fixed amount of funding to conduct their research. 2. All funded scientists are obliged to donate a fixed percentage of all of the funding that they previously received to other researchers: the funding circulates through the community, converging on researchers that are expected to make the best use of it.
A new funding model for scientists
What scientist hasn’t dreamed of spending less time getting funding and more time doing research?
US science agencies get some relief in 2014 budget
Physical science wins bigger increases than biomedical research.
Collective allocation of science funding: from funding agencies to scientific agency
Collective allocation of science funding: from funding agencies to scientific agency
The NSF and the NIH award tens of billions of dollars in annual science funding. How can this money be distributed as efficiently as possible to best promote scientific innovation and productivity?
Global R&D funding 2014 forecast
Battelle and R&D Magazine jointly released the 2014 Global R&D Funding Forecast indicating that the combination of private and public global R&D spending was flat for 2013.
Are research sandpits a good way to allocate public funding to research?
The EPSRC allocates millions to fund research at residential workshops.
NIH to experiment with high-risk grants
NIH considers supporting more individual researchers rather than projects.
DFG richtet neun weitere Sonderforschungsbereiche ein
Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) richtet neun weitere Sonderforschungsbereiche (SFB) ein.
What's so special about science? (And how much should we spend on it?)
Presidential address on why society is willing to support an endeavor as abstract and altruistic as basic scientific research and an enterprise as large and practical as the R&D enterprise as a whole.
The end of written grant applications: Let's use a formula
Hours spent writing grant applications could be spent actually doing research with a grant-determining formula.
White House unveils big data projects, round two
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Networking and Information Technology R&D program (NITRD) on Tuesday introduced a slew of new big-data collaboration projects aimed at stimulating private-sector interest in federal data.
Large NIH projects cut
Big science is under big pressure at the NIH. Gone are the glory days of the early 2000s, when a doubling of the agency's budget over five years allowed it to establish dozens of programmes with their own large, dedicated budgets.
Why research assessment is out of control
Universities and academics cannot live without the Research Excellence Framework, but we need to go back to a simpler form of measurement, argues Peter Scott
Does UK science have a fetish for the short-term?
Many of the biggest problems in science are tackled through sustained efforts over years or decades. But if science is a long-term endeavour, why are funding and careers so fixated on the now? Guest post by Andrew Holding.
Spanish science still suffering
Despite Friday's €70m rescue of the Spanish National Research Council, Spain's scientists are still in mourning. Amaya Moro Martín sets the scene as a range of commentators identify the challenges still facing Spanish science
Scientists' public engagement work should be generously funded
Public engagement should be an integral part of research, not an unpaid hobby, which is why the Wellcome Trust has decided to invest £4.5m a year in it.
Chinese science needs fund formula
Fury is the word the minister of science and technology used on the weekend to describe his feelings about the misappropriation of scientific research funds.
Fears over physical science funding in the UK
Although UK's research funding might be protected, the research councils themselves face a squeeze on their operational costs.
Sao Paulo's success story
The success of Sao Paulo's way of funding science has made it a model throughout Brazil: Sao Paulo produces 50 per cent of Brazilian science through FAPESP which receives one per cent of state tax revenue. The model allows for long-term planning and other states are now emulating it.
Why You DON'T "Fucking Love Science"
So you think you love science, do you? What does that mean to you, exactly? For most people, I'm guessing it means something like data, and like countless "Principal Investigators" of the science world, you're confusing data with science.
What is good science? And what gets public funding?
I've heard that we should stop talking about "pure" science and "applied" science; that we should only be talking about "good" science and "bad" science. Last year, CSIRO Chief Executive Megan Clark said as much during question time at her National Press Club address, and this year I heard it recommended again at the Universities Australia Conference.
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