research funding

From connecting the dots to integrating surfaces: bridging levels of analysis in neuroscience

Katy Armstrong — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:39:40 -0700

Description

At the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting, which hosts roughly 30,000 researchers each year (1), one can attend talks by eminent scientists on topics ranging from the structure of individual molecules to the foibles of moral reasoning. The tremendous breadth of research in the neurosciences raises the question of whether and how different levels of scientific analysis can be integrated to form a mechanistic understanding of cognitive phenomena.

A classic example in neuroscience is learning, which is studied simultaneously by scientists examining patterns of gene expression, the formation of new neurons in the brain, physiological changes in individual neurons, computational models of neural networks, changes in behavior of laboratory animals, and neural correlates of human learning. Although it is unclear how these different empirical measures are related to each other, it is typically assumed that they are and that each approach offers some insight into the mechanisms at play when we learn, say, a foreign language.

For many, the challenge of integrating these disparate levels of analysis may be viewed as the need to outline a causal chain from molecules to behavior. Indeed, this reductionist principle of mechanism forms the basis of much of modern medicine, which manipulates molecular signaling pathways to produce changes in behavior, such as is the case in drugs that treat depression. However, as illustrated in the case of learning, oftentimes the initiating event is best understood at the behavioral level, for example reading a book or observing the behavior of another person, suggesting that a systems approach, in which multiple levels of analysis are considered, may be necessary to understand the complex phenomena that comprise human behavior.

In neuroscience the adoption of a systems approach is gaining popularity. This year a “Biology of Cognition” meeting sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital, the pharmaceutical company Ipsen, and Cell Press, a high-profile publisher of neuroscience research, will be organized around five cognitive areas and will explicitly aim to unite “researchers from cognitive science, systems neuroscience, cognitive psychology, molecular/cellular neuroscience, genetics and neuropathology” and to stimulate interactions between researchers working on the same phenomenon but at different levels of analysis (2).

There is more evidence of this shift as well, whether it is in classrooms that focus on question driven, rather than technique driven learning (3), or in the hiring practices of research organizations. Oftentimes scientists are defined by the techniques they use. However, Janelia Farms, Howard Hughes Medical Institutes new biomedical research center, is designed around questions that “require expertise from disparate areas” and has built its scientific community around researchers focused on a few specific areas of concentration (4). To date Janelia has received support from the scientific community in that it has attracted many leading scientists.

This emphasis on drawing on different experimental techniques and on integrating levels of analysis, if fruitful, has tremendous implications for the way research is taught, conducted, and published. The traditional divisions of science--chemistry, biology, psychology, physics, etc.--may eventually be shed completely, as interdisciplinary research becomes the norm. One university could instead have a center devoted to learning and memory, whereas another could choose to focus on climate change, drawing from researchers studying the economics, sociology, and chemistry related to that issue. The shift toward integration could also affect scientific publication, which already favors mechanistic accounts that draw from different techniques, as well as research funding programs, which may focus on larger “center” grants given to teams of researchers working on a single problem, as opposed to grants targeting a single lab.

Although the trend toward trying to connect levels of analysis is particularly apparent in neuroscience, it is clearly relevant to many fields that aim to understand and manipulate complex systems, such as economics and ecology.

References
1) Society for Neurosciences annual meeting, http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=annualMeeting_statistics&section=annualMeeting

2) 2008 Biology of Cognition, http://www.massgeneral.org/cvrc/meetings.html

3) X2 Forecast: New approach to neuroscience education tests model for the future of biology education, http://sciencex2.com/en/node/400

4) Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia farms, http://www.hhmi.org/janelia/science.html

Signals

Conference on attention suggests fruitful interactions between experimental science and philosophy

The Planck Club: Another call for supporting science differently

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:42:36 -0700

Description

A recent letter to the Financial Times, signed by a number of prominent British and American scientists, decries the growth of "third-party assessments such as peer review" as inimical to radical scientific innovation. Leaving aside arguments about the degree to which "normal" versus "revolutionary" science differ, or can be prospectively identified and supported, the letter is another piece of evidence that a growing number of scientists see the traditional structures that regulated and rewarded their work:

Scientific advances are not predictable. Lasers, nuclear power, transistors, computers, antibiotics, molecular biology, for example, all took us by surprise. Luckily, for most of the 20th century scientists could usually pursue their own agenda, and we could enjoy sciences prodigious harvest. But success led to increasing numbers of scientists so that by the 1970s there were more than the funding agencies could support. In response, they required researchers to submit written proposals from which they selected the best, a policy that works well enough for the mainstream but fails at the margins where unpredictable and transformative discoveries are made.

Third-party assessments such as peer review would have been anathema to, say, Planck, Einstein, Avery, Townes, Crick and Watson, Kendrew, Perutz and about 300 others of similar calibre we call them the Planck Club whose work dominated the 20th century. However, their modern successors cannot escape them. In spite of increasing investments since 1970, there has been a dearth of new science. This is now a severe problem. As [economist Robert] Solow proved, we curb the supply of new science at our economic peril. However, current policies ensure we are doing that.

Science does not lack opportunity. There are few, if any, fields that we fully understand. The potential for growth is therefore as high as it was 100 years ago, say, but we will create a 21st-century Planck Club and its attendant harvest of unpredicted breakthroughs only if we can restore the freedom that leads to them.

There is a proven way of doing this. Costs would be relatively low some $20m-$30m a year for a global scheme but as prospective peer review must be excluded, it is probably too radical a solution for national funding agencies alone. There may be other ways forward such as, for example, collaboration between private investors and national agencies.

Three things are interesting here. First, the letter is signed by several Nobel laureates and other luminaries: this isn't a complaint by junior people whose careers are squeezed. Second, they acknowledge the radicalness of the a system in which traditional review mechanisms are suspended in favor of extreme, potentially paradigm-changing, freedom. Finally, $20-30 million is well within the reach of a handful of entrepreneurs. No one would want to fund this privately, but a consortium of people? If you know the right people, that wouldn't be that hard to do.

Amateur, DIY, and citizen science

Source

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1338bc6-303c-11dd-86cc-000077b07658.html

Nature Magazine weighs in on issues surrounding industry/academic collaboration in the life sciences

Katy Armstrong — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:30:53 -0700

Description

Robin Mejia, writing for Nature Magazine, reports on some of the practical and ethical issues surrounding accepting corporate funds to conduct academic research in the life sciences. (1)

"Maintaining scientific integrity in a world where academic research and profit-seeking industry overlap is a challenge for many nations and individual scientists" (2). Restrictive contracts surrounding the publication of study results, and ability to cut funds mid-study the potential to draw the results of industry-backed studies into question. Indeed, Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark, found that in Denmark most corporations retained the rights to the data uncovered by the studies they sponsored, whereas David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, has found that corporate-backed studies are more likely to produce results that benefit the corporation than independently funded studies.

These issues are particularly pertinent where and when government funding for research is difficult to obtain.

Although different scientists have diverse perspectives on whether it is ever appropriate to accept corporate funding, Mejia concludes, "Industry funding can provide valuable research support for academics, but such arrangements must be handled with care." (1)

Ethics in Science

Source

1) Robin Mejia, 2008. Taking The Industry Road. Nature 453, 1138-1139
2) Gene Russo, 2008. Prospects. Nature 453, 1137

Investigation of Harvard psychiatrists highlights inadequate regulation of commercially funded research in academic institutions

Katy Armstrong — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:10:13 -0700

Description

Joseph Biederman and Timothy E. Wilens, both Harvard professors of psychiatry, are under investigation for failing to report millions of dollars in "consultant fees" received from pharmaceutical companies over the past decade. Both professors received government research grants requiring disclosure of any additional research monies received. In addition, Harvard limits the amount of corporate funding for conducting clinical trials to $10K, so the researchers appear to be in violation of multiple regulations designed to limit potential conflicts of interest between publicly funded basic research and corporation-backed translational research.

In addition to emphasizing the need to improve the execution of existing regulations, and possibly expand them further such as through the creation of a national research funding registry, news of the investigation also casts a cloud of doubt on the scientist's research. Dr. Biederman's research, for example, promotes the treatment of antipsychotic drugs in young children to treat bi-polar disorder. Both the disease, and its treatment, are controversial topics fraught with questions about the subject nature of diagnosis, concerns over the long-term effects of medication as well as possible developmental consequences.

Ethics in Science

Source

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08conflict.html?ref=health

AAAS executive addresses concerns over young scientists' career prospects

Katy Armstrong — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:40:46 -0700

Description

Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of Science magazine, identified two trends that reflect current obstacles to success for young scientists in biomedical research (1).

First, the average age for receiving an independent research grant from the National Institute for Health is 42-44 years, and at the National Science Foundation it is typically 6-7 years following completion of a PhD. As Leshner put it, "One has to wait until near middle age before getting one's own research program in full gear."

In addition, most researchers must complete 2-3 years of post-doctoral training before securing a tenure track position, constraining the freedom of young investigators to initiate their own independent line of research.

Leshner acknowledges that although nearly every funding agency has experimented with new programs to target young investigators, many of these programs could be described as stop-gap measures that bring stigma to the recipients along with financial support.

Leshner proposes that instead of creating new funding mechanisms, funding agencies should simply "tilt funding decisions more toward new investigators", in order to increase the success rates for new grant applicants. This necessarily means that funding for more senior investigators will be comparatively more difficult to receive, but Leshner suggests this tradeoff will be necessary in order to "demonstrate a real commitment of the scientific enterprise to ensuring its own continuity."

Science in the United States

Source

1) Leshner AI, 2008. Just give them grants. Science 320, p. 849

Open Collaborative Research Proposals

Jean-Claude Bradley — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:26:28 -0700

Description

As an indicator of the trends of Open Science and crowdsourcing, initiatives are arising to facilitate collaboration for the purpose of seeking research funding. For example, the SCIEnCE project (1) serves as a repository for such open proposals:

SCIEnCE – Share Collaborative Ideas, Enact Cooperative Efforts – is part of the growing movement dedicated to encouraging public sharing of testable ideas. Not just ideas, but plans of action – ideas will be developed into specific, step-by-step proposals via Wiki-inspired community editing. A new system for attributing credit will be used to distribute funding for SCIEnCE projects. The projects outlined by these collaboratively written proposals will be tackled with a cooperative experimental approach.

In order to fully capitalize on the benefits of such a strategy, the involvement of funding agencies will be necessary. This may only happen when a critical mass of proposals and people is reached.

Discussions about how new funding mechanisms could be established to take advantage of such a system are currently taking place (2). Cameron Neylon writes:

What is being generated here is new science, and science isn’t paid for per se. The resources that generate science are supported by governments, charities, and industry but the actual production of science is not supported. The truly radical approach to this would be to turn the system on its head. Don’t fund the universities to do science, fund the journals to buy science; then the system would reward increased efficiency. As it exists at the moment the funding system does nothing to support increased efficiency.

In stock exchanges and money markets, people are paid an awfully large amount of money to make what are fundamentally rather simple connections between buyers and sellers. This is still, for the most part, ultimately handled by humans, although there is a move towards fully automatic position taking. The connections we are talking about are much more complex to understand. To make this work we need to figure out how to reward the people who can make those connections. We also need to find a way to put money into the system to actually help provide the additional resources required to actually make things happen.

Future of chemistry

Source

1) http://sharescienceideas.wikispaces.com/
2) http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/04/16/the-science-exchange/

Managing Large Scientific Communities

Sabine Hossenfelder — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:49:23 -0700

Description

The community of scientists is increasing, becomes tighter connected, and more global. Under these circumstances, people working together face additional challenges that occur in large groups. They struggle to balance specialization versus diversity, collaboration versus competition, and have to avoid fallacies that large groups of people can run into when left without management. This problem is especially obvious in the academic world where management above the very local level is only slowly emerging in multi-institutional projects (that however come with an enormous bureaucratic effort).

These are points that have long been acknowledged and addressed by company leaders, but embarrassingly the academic world has not yet come to realize the scientific community needs a proper management to function efficiently, a way to provide incentives for researchers and their studies such that it does not hinder progress on the long run. As a consequence, presently lots of time and energy is wasted with self-supporting but progress-hindering behavior like hiring and selection processes that have become inappropriate (e.g. simply the increasing amount of applications is more demanding and tempts superficiality or reliance on personal connections), the time-scales on which funding is provided is in many areas very far off reality (in that writing reports about results all three months, or planning ahead for five years is a requirement that does not fit to the way science actually works) and the occurrence of pseudo-interesting areas that flourish because members of sub-groups provide themselves with positive feedback (as a highly discussed case study, see e.g. Lee Smolin, "The Trouble with Physics" Houghton Mifflin (2006)).

The sociology of science consists so far mostly of analytic studies, but practical advises and their implementation are badly needed. I therefore expect that the interest in this area will further increase in the next decade, and that new strategies to distribute funds and support researchers will have to be established.

Source

Reforming the approach to 'demand-driven' research

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:34:08 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/reforming-the-approach-to-demand-driven-research.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_scienceandinnovationpolicy

Sci Dev reports on a recent study of demand-based research, "in which research programmes are determined by those who will benefit from their results," in the developing world. It argues for the need, even in these targeted programs, to include "a strong focus on research capacity building."

The evaluators identify three particular problems with the demand-driven approach.

First, there may be situations in which such an approach is not necessarily the best or even the more appropriate solution. This can happen, for example, where the broad socio-political context is unfavourable — as the Dutch discovered in Vietnam and Mali.

Second, rigid adherence to the belief that all significant input should be bottom-up can result in individual programmes becoming isolated from the broader experience of the research community. A lack of dialogue with scientific peers, in both developed and other developing countries, can be damaging.

Third, the evaluators emphasise that the large amount of time required to start research programmes from scratch can hinder the growth of a more strategic and broad-based approach to research support.

ASU researcher finds direct democracy in science too much of a good thing

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:00:00 -0800

NOTE: This content was aggregated from RSS feed. Original source is http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/asu-arf021408.php

EurekAlert reports:

Publicly funded science in America is accountable to the people and their government representatives. However, this arrangement raises questions regarding the effect such oversight has on science. It is a problem of particular relevance as the nation prepares for the end of the Bush administration, which has taken divisive stances on a number of issues, including stem cell research and global warming. Striking a balance is an essential question for Daniel Sarewitz of Arizona State University....

"While increased democratization in the sciences is certainly desirable, direct democracy — putting it to the public to decide which programs are worthy of funding and which are not — is an absurd way to fund science," Sarewitz says.

"There is a reason that we have representative democracy in this country," he adds. "It is because it is doubtful that people — with the exception of specifically interested parties — have the time to study and investigate in any detail the topics being voted on.'

Another problem with direct democracy, explains Sarewitz, is that it does not give people an opportunity to choose among a variety of science programs.

"Instead, a ‘political advocacy circus’ is created around an issue — the classic example being Proposition 71, the California stem cell research bond issue of three years ago."

"Democratization really means a more open process and institutions that are more transparent," Sarewitz says. "It means expanding the franchise to include public participation in complex decision-making processes."

Structure, Tools, and Platforms of Science

Endowments Widen a Higher Education Gap

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:52:31 -0800

Description

The New York Times reports on the growing endowment gap between the better-off Ivy League universities:

[T]he wealth amassed by elite universities... through soaring endowments over the past decade has exacerbated the divide between a small group of spectacularly wealthy universities and all others.... The result is that America’s already stratified system of higher education is becoming ever more so, and the chasm is creating all sorts of tensions as the less wealthy colleges try to compete. Even state universities are going into fund-raising overdrive and trying to increase endowments to catch up.

The wealthiest colleges can tap their endowments to give substantial financial aid to families earning $180,000 or more. They can lure star professors with high salaries and hard-to-get apartments. They are starting sophisticated new research laboratories, expanding their campuses and putting up architecturally notable buildings.

The increased stratification has come from private universities' more aggressive investment strategies, and a decline in funding levels for state universities, which tend to have smaller endowments and greater constraints on their spending.

Source

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/education/04endowment.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Federal support for research in nearly all disciplines in now in decline (AAAS)

Jess Hemerly — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:29:47 -0800

Description

From the overview:

- Total federal support of research (basic and applied) would fall 2.1 percent to $55.5 billion, even after large proposed increases for physical sciences and related research in NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and NIST. A rare cut in NIH research funding and steep cuts in research funding at DOD, NASA, USDA, and other agencies would more than offset the ACI gains. In real terms, federal research spending would fall for the fourth year in a row, down 7.4 percent from 2004

Science in the United States

Source

AAAS Report XXXII: Research and Development FY 2008. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2007.

2006 trends in science funding: US, Europe, and Japan are still in the lead... but for how long?

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:12:14 -0800

Description

Nature conducted a survey in 2006 that concluded that while a number of developing countries were growing domestic scientific capability rapidly, "the United States, Japan and western Europe have a commanding lead over the rest of the world."

The world's most advanced economies are losing their scientific edge, some analysts claim. Fearing, that weak research budgets will lead to weak economies, lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic are preparing to pour billions of dollars into research and development....

We measured the total government investment in research, which includes both civil and defence R&D, and, to give a better sense of scale, we also looked at that investment as a proportion of each country's gross domestic product (GDP)....

The United States, in particular, dominates global sciences, spending an astounding US$134 billion on R&D this year alone — more than any other country or region. Much of that money, about 60%, is spent on defence-related R&D, but even when those funds are subtracted, the United States is still the standard by which all other nations measure themselves.

Things may not stay that way, however. Science budgets in the United States, Germany and France, have been stagnant in recent years, whereas budgets in Asian countries such as India and China have been racing upwards. If current trends continue, China is predicted to catch up with European Union spending, at least in terms of GDP share, by 2010.

East and Southeast Asia: Science and Technology

Source

The scientific balance of power: Source: "The scientific balance of power," Nature 439 (9 February 2006), 646-647. doi:10.1038/439646a

Diversification of research funding: from federal to industrial

Jerry Sheehan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:31:49 -0800

Description

Historically, the modern university received substantial funding for scientific research from the federal government of the United States. These efforts, often driven by national priorities such as defense, helped support a research portfolio which balanced basic and applied research. In the coming decade this will change as we see an increase in the diversity of funding sources supporting academic research in America.

Recent concerns over American competitiveness lead to proposed increases in FY08 for federal support for academic research. However, federal R&D support is heading downwards (FY08 R&D budget growth is only 1.3%; Inflation is 2.4%; Non-Defense R&D spending has been stagnant for two decades). This lead the American Association for the Advancement of Science to conclude, "As a result, federal support for research in nearly all disciplines in now in decline, a decline that would accelerate in the 2008 budget..."[1]

Increased pressures on the discretionary budget, where academic federal research and development is primarily funded, will worsen as the burden from non-discretionary funding grow. Projections in this regard are dire enough that without intervention entitlements will crowd out other spending. As Brian Ridel noted in his testimony before the Budget Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in February of 2006, "The real reason for concern comes from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, whose steep growth will likely crowd out ALL other spending."[2]

As the federal government struggles to keep pace with the breadth of investment necessary to support academic research other sources in particular from industry have increased. The most recent and substantial of these being when in November 2007 British Petroleum pledged to spend $500 million over the next decade to support alternative energy research led by Berkeley.[3]

The increased diversity of funding sources for scientific research in particular from industry will likely lead to new concerns on campuses about the ability to freely publish academic results and the balance between basic and applied research. In the extreme this will likely lead to campus protests over research partnerships. For example, the BP deal has already spawned a student led grass-roots effort to lobby the public and university to dump the contract, see http://www.stohpbp-berkeley.org

There is little academic research that has been conducted on the impact of funding source on the nature of scientific publications, quality of science achieved, etc. However, one of the few studies done in this area found no negative impacts. As Teresa Behrnes and Dennis Gray noted in 2001, "...according to our findings, industry-supported projects are just as likely as government-sponsored projects: to be doing academic quality research (as evidenced by the project being their thesis); to involve a faculty member who receives some support from industry; and to involve students who choose, as opposed to being assigned to, that project. Interestingly, while sponsored research was by far the norm, students report infrequent interaction with their research sponsors (whether industry or government). Consistent with this finding, industry-supported students perceive themselves to have as much influence on their research projects and to be doing research that is similar in terms of basic/applied, long-term/short-term, etc., as their government-sponsored counterparts. Since students supported by these two sectors appear to be having similar research experiences, it should come as no surprise that they also report similar outcomes in terms of publications, career goals and perceived climate for academic freedom."[4]

One of the unintended consequences of the increased acceptance of industrial funding for scientific research will a personnel based "technology transfer" as university research scientists leave to take on private sector research roles. This will occur as University researchers grow more familiar with business research and development and seeing their ideas taken to market.

[1] AAAS Report XXXII, Research and Development in FY08
[2] "Testimony Before the Budget Committee" Brian Ridel, U.S. House of Representatives, February 16, 2006.
[3] "Bell Labs is Gone. Academia Steps In" G. Pascal Zachary, New York Times, December 16, 2007
[4]"Unintended Consequences of Cooperative Research: Impact of Industry Sponsorship on Climate for Academic Freedom and Other Graduate Student Outcome" , Teresa Behrnes and Dennis Gray, Research Policy, Volume 30, Issue 2, February 2001, Pages 179-199

Signals

Corporate Labs Disappear. Academia Steps In.

Unintended consequences of cooperative research

Federal support for research in nearly all disciplines in now in decline (AAAS)

William Wulf's "Disturbing Mosaic"