Once upon a time there were three researchers, who worked in a medium-sized university and were happy. One day the three researchers were told that they should apply for grants. They were told that grants are good, but they weren’t given any help in writing these grants, so the three researchers went on their merry way to find grants.
The first researcher decided to apply for a SCREN grant. SCREN was considered the holy grail of grants. The problem for the first researcher was that he didn’t know where his research would fit in. His research project was titled “The evaluation of user-based design ontologies applied to robotic systems”. So he picked a field, wrote his application, submitted it and waited. And waited. Many months passed, and the researcher finally got a response. His grant had been denied. Confused, the researcher asked why? No good response was provided, so the researcher assumed his project was just too applied in nature. The reviewers comments were ridiculous and somewhat self-centred.
The second researcher also applied for a SCREN grant. This researcher had a huge grant from another source, and had applied for the covetted SCREN a few times before, always falling though the hole of peer-review. His research project was titled “Impact of computer-based technologies on learning”. His result also came back negative, even though he had numerous publications, a history of good industry-based funding and a project that had a real-life application. His project was well written, and he even had it peer-reviewed before it was submitted in order to identify and inadequacies. All to no avail.
The third researcher, also applied for a SCREN grant. The subject of his project was titled: “The control of vortex decision parameters in the design of ultra intelligent autonomous web-based search agents”. Surprisingly, the third research had his project approved, with a stipend of $29,000 annually. The other two researchers were stunned.
The moral of the story? If you can write a good story, and convince others that the research you are doing is beneficial (even if it is evidently not), you will get a grant. Many grant processes are tied to the same process of peer-review we know doesn’t work in paper-review. Except this time, people’s bias, lack of knowledge and leack of context actually costs others grants. Good, applied research with a strong possibility of an outcome will not usually get you a grant. People love theory, but don’t necessarily like applications. Some will say that these “applied” ideas should be industry funded. Yeah, maybe they’re right. But maybe, just maybe they should have the same right to be funded as the theory stuff. Funding by industry has strings attached. And any university that advocates it as a way of bringing in money is nuts!
Corporations have shareholders, and shareholders like to make money. Some of us have stocks in these companies, and it is fair to say that we like our stocks to go up, mainly so we can retire early! So, if you work with a company that is providing $ for your research, then they are probably entitled to a portion of the intellectual property. I mean it is only fair, isn’t it? Here’s the catch though. They probably don’t want you to publish the intricate details of your work. They probably want a patent of two, or just want to keep the whole thing hush. So you get $, but don’t get publications. Sort-of defeats the purpose don’t you think?
Too much money seems to be given out to support ridiculous research. Some of it never happens, or the results produced seem bogus. Where is the money to investigate practical projects, which impact both students and the greater community?
Who knows. Somebody should think about looking a little closer at grants and ask where the money goes. And for those that review grants, think about this. Review the grant without any bias, and ask yourself how this research could benefit others. Don’t write in the review that the author should include your work. It’s just ego-centric and unnecessary. And PLEASE provide some constructive feedback. Otherwise, some of us just view obtaining these grants as a crap-shoot.
