biomedical research leaders often complain that the research funding system on specific projects US stifles risk taking and creativity. A better model, they say, would be to give the long-term price researchers unconditionally. Now some MIT economists say they have thoroughly tested this idea for the first time and found that scientists with public funding are indeed more productive and creative.
There are two basic biomedical science funding models in the United States. The National Institutes of Health provides the bulk of its grant money as a 3 or 4-year grants, called R01, for research projects on specific topics with detailed objectives. Then there is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nonprofit giant that supports more than 300 researchers across the country for 5 years or more depending on their qualifications, not personal what they study. "People, not projects" is the mantra of HHMI, and proponents say it supports the most creative science.
But so far there has been no "serious efforts "to test this idea, says MIT economist Pierre Azoulay So he and two colleagues compared the careers of two groups. seventy-three were HHMI investigators who were appointed in the early 190s, and about 400 were scientists of the same age who have received prestigious "early career" from sources such as the Pew Charitable trusts and the Packard Foundation. (About 70% of HHMI investigators started with one of these awards, said Azoulay.) they also compared a group of scientists who received a long term, prestigious, specific to the NIH project, called a MERIT award.
the HHMI investigators clearly won, producing twice as many documents the top 5% of citations as the first career winners, for example, the team concludes AZOULAY in a working paper. They were closer to the MERIT beneficiaries in production, but 50% more written documents in the top 1% by citation. HHMI group were also more likely to change the keywords in their resumes over time, suggesting that they were moving in new directions, creative.
makes sense, but the study to fully control that the HHMI scientists might be more gifted to begin with? "We can not. We are very open about it," said Azoulay. To really know if the type of funding makes a difference, you must assign randomly equally qualified researchers to either get an HHMI-type or R01 funding, who admits he is unlikely to occur.
he adds that the study is not intended as an "exercise NIH-bashing." While the NIH has some new types of awards following HHMI model, such as the price of Pioneer, he does not think the agency should R01 gap altogether, said Azoulay. Science requires a mixture of work "incremental" and "breakthrough", especially to translate the results, he said. And the document concludes:
Only scientists showing outstanding qualities are eligible HHMI appointments and our results may not generalize to the overall population of eligible scientists to a subsidy, which include individuals gifted and those with more modest talent. In addition, HHMI provides a detailed evaluation and feedback to investigators. The richness of this feedback resource intensive, especially the time of elite scientists who serve on review panels, and its quality may deteriorate if the program was expanded drastically.
But Azoulay think NIH is making a mistake now: he is not collecting data, be aware if scientists funded by the new models are more productive effect. "We can never learn how effective it was," he said.
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