AnGenMap

From gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Thu Sep 29 11:40:01 2011 From: Daniel Gianola To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:40:01 -0500 Many of us surely feel that the current system is extraordinarily inefficient and cumbersome. Hopefully, this article will catalyze some action on out part. Daniel ------------------------------------------------------------- Q&A: Overhaul the Funding System Can science step in to find the best ways of allocating money for research? By Kerry Grens | September 28, 2011 It's a perennial complaint among scientists: grant writing takes up too much time. "I think that there's pretty much wide agreement that scientists have to spend a lot of time to write proposals, to review proposals, to write progress reports, final reports, and do lots of things that are not necessarily contributing to science," said John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford University's School of Medicine. But it isn't just time that's spent unwisely, but billions and billions of dollars that could be allocated in smarter ways, Ioannidis wrote in a comment in today's Nature. The Scientist spoke with Ioannidis about his ideas to fix science funding in the United States. The Scientist: What are the current problems with the way science is funded in America? John Ioannidis:I think that the way that the funding system works, people have to promise something that is exaggerated. They have to compete against others who are promising something that would be spectacular, and therefore they need to make a huge claim that often they may not be able to deliver, just because of the odds of science. Or they have to promise something that would be highly predictable. It's something that they may have already done or that they know what the answer is going to be... So in a sense I think the current system is almost destroying the potential for innovative ideas and in many cases it even fosters mediocrity. TS: What's the best way to improve upon the current funding paradigm? JI: What I advocated in that comment was we need to have some studies to directly test, ideally in a randomized fashion, whether one strategy performs better than another. One could think about pilot projects where you have consenting scientists who say I'm willing to be randomized to funding scheme A versus funding scheme B. A could be lottery allocation, for example, and B could be merit-based. If we run these types of studies, in a few years we can see what these scientists have done in the short term. Maybe in the longer term we can also see whether their research really made a difference. I'm in favor of experimenting, because we're spending billions and billions of dollars and we're doing that with no good evidence really. TS: In your proposal for funding scientists according to merit, you mention independent indices to measure a proposal's worth. What are some examples? JI: I think that publications and citations should not be undervalued. They could play a very important role in that assessment. But maybe combining indices and paying attention to quality aspects other than quantity could be informative. One could think of merging indices that exclude self- citation or take into account the impact of papers rather than the amount of papers and adjust for co-authorship. There are indices to do that, and I think they can be objective if you combine them. On top of this we have the opportunity to build additional information into the profile of an investigator based on scientific citizenship practices. Things like sharing of data or protocols, and how often these data and protocols are utilized by other researchers, how much do they contribute to other aspects of improving science. I think it's an opportunity: if we really feel that some practices are essential for science, and we want to improve these practices, then tying them to the funding mechanism is really the prime way to make them happen. TS: In this kind of scheme is seems like weight might be given to more established scientists. What are ways to help younger faculty who don't have such a track record? JI: I would think that this is actually a problem of the current system, rather than any proposal to create something new. The average age for an investigator to get his first RO1 currently in the states is about 40 or 41 years old. People are going through 15 years of being active researchers, and they still don't have independence. So I think that a system that is based on merit could really get younger scientists on board much faster than the current system. Moreover, for example, if you use citation indices, you can always adjust for the number of years that someone has been active. And there's some evidence that the track record of some individuals could be identified from fairly early in their careers. I would also think that for young investigators it's probably okay to move closer to the possibility of an egalitarian sharing, so give some opportunity to lots of people early on for a few years and see what they can do. They will build a track record within a few years, and then you can start having some impact measures or citizenship practice measures. TS: How do we balance the interests of funding sure-bet science or translational research versus very risky or basic science? JI: This is not an easy question. I think people have a different perception of what would be the appropriate allocation between these two strategies. It has to be a common consensus in the scientific community of what we really want to do. Currently I think innovative research is undervalued and not given enough opportunities to succe. J.P.A. Ioannidis, "Fund people not projects," Nature, 477:529-31, 2011. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel Gianola Sewall Wright Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics Department of Animal Sciences Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Department of Dairy Science --------------------------------------------------------------------- Department of Animal Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison 440 Animal Sciences Building 1675 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 USA email: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Telephone: 1-608-265-2054 Fax: 1-608-262-5157 http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/facstaff/Faculty/pages/gianola/index.html "Nature is written in mathematical language" (Galileo Galilei). However, if nothing seems to work, try Bayes:

From ignacy@uga.edu Fri Sep 30 23:14:51 2011 From: Ignacy Misztal To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:14:51 -0500 I am not sure that exagerration of potential results or inadequate assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews know the reality and can adjust for it. The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than accomplishing anything important. Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant system. Ignacy Misztal Animal and Dairy Science, University of GA Athens GA 30602, USA tel 706-542-0951 fax:706-583-0274 http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy On Sep 30, 2011, at 2:39 AM, Daniel Gianola wrote: Many of us surely feel that the current system is extraordinarily inefficient and cumbersome. Hopefully, this article will catalyze some action on out part. Daniel ------------------------------------------------------------- Q&A: Overhaul the Funding System Can science step in to find the best ways of allocating money for research? By Kerry Grens | September 28, 2011 It's a perennial complaint among scientists: grant writing takes up too much time. "I think that there's pretty much wide agreement that scientists have to spend a lot of time to write proposals, to review proposals, to write progress reports, final reports, and do lots of things that are not necessarily contributing to science," said John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford University's School of Medicine. But it isn't just time that's spent unwisely, but billions and billions of dollars that could be allocated in smarter ways, Ioannidis wrote in a comment in today's Nature. The Scientist spoke with Ioannidis about his ideas to fix science funding in the United States. The Scientist: What are the current problems with the way science is funded in America? John Ioannidis: I think that the way that the funding system works, people have to promise something that is exaggerated. They have to compete against others who are promising something that would be spectacular, and therefore they need to make a huge claim that often they may not be able to deliver, just because of the odds of science. Or they have to promise something that would be highly predictable. It's something that they may have already done or that they know what the answer is going to be... So in a sense I think the current system is almost destroying the potential for innovative ideas and in many cases it even fosters mediocrity. TS: What's the best way to improve upon the current funding paradigm? JI: What I advocated in that comment was we need to have some studies to directly test, ideally in a randomized fashion, whether one strategy performs better than another. One could think about pilot projects where you have consenting scientists who say I'm willing to be randomized to funding scheme A versus funding scheme B. A could be lottery allocation, for example, and B could be merit-based. If we run these types of studies, in a few years we can see what these scientists have done in the short term. Maybe in the longer term we can also see whether their research really made a difference. I'm in favor of experimenting, because we're spending billions and billions of dollars and we're doing that with no good evidence really. TS: In your proposal for funding scientists according to merit, you mention independent indices to measure a proposal's worth. What are some examples? JI: I think that publications and citations should not be undervalued. They could play a very important role in that assessment. But maybe combining indices and paying attention to quality aspects other than quantity could be informative. One could think of merging indices that exclude self- citation or take into account the impact of papers rather than the amount of papers and adjust for co-authorship. There are indices to do that, and I think they can be objective if you combine them. On top of this we have the opportunity to build additional information into the profile of an investigator based on scientific citizenship practices. Things like sharing of data or protocols, and how often these data and protocols are utilized by other researchers, how much do they contribute to other aspects of improving science. I think it's an opportunity: if we really feel that some practices are essential for science, and we want to improve these practices, then tying them to the funding mechanism is really the prime way to make them happen. TS: In this kind of scheme is seems like weight might be given to more established scientists. What are ways to help younger faculty who don't have such a track record? JI: I would think that this is actually a problem of the current system, rather than any proposal to create something new. The average age for an investigator to get his first RO1 currently in the states is about 40 or 41 years old. People are going through 15 years of being active researchers, and they still don't have independence. So I think that a system that is based on merit could really get younger scientists on board much faster than the current system. Moreover, for example, if you use citation indices, you can always adjust for the number of years that someone has been active. And there's some evidence that the track record of some individuals could be identified from fairly early in their careers. I would also think that for young investigators it's probably okay to move closer to the possibility of an egalitarian sharing, so give some opportunity to lots of people early on for a few years and see what they can do. They will build a track record within a few years, and then you can start having some impact measures or citizenship practice measures. TS: How do we balance the interests of funding sure-bet science or translational research versus very risky or basic science? JI: This is not an easy question. I think people have a different perception of what would be the appropriate allocation between these two strategies. It has to be a common consensus in the scientific community of what we really want to do. Currently I think innovative research is undervalued and not given enough opportunities to succe. J.P.A. Ioannidis, "Fund people not projects," Nature, 477:529-31, 2011. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel Gianola Sewall Wright Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics Department of Animal Sciences Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Department of Dairy Science --------------------------------------------------------------------- Department of Animal Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison 440 Animal Sciences Building 1675 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 USA email: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Telephone: 1-608-265-2054 Fax: 1-608-262-5157 http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/facstaff/Faculty/pages/gianola/index.html "Nature is written in mathematical language" (Galileo Galilei). However, if nothing seems to work, try Bayes:

From igi2@cornell.edu Sat Oct 1 22:25:50 2011 From: Ikhide Imumorin To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:25:50 -0500 Dear Colleagues, Like many things in life, there are many sides to this story. Institutions like mega grants because they get a lot of indirect costs which help close budget gaps and contribute to running the institutions including the mega salaries of administrators. It is easy, although unfair for successfully funded scientists to label those less successful as simply jealous for lack of similar success with grants. I think one of the major issues is that scientific research has become overly expensive. Let us take animal genomics, a field where most people receiving this email work. The average cost for genotyping using say 50K SNP chip is about $150. To do a study that is adequately powered requires several hundred samples. Add in the salary and benefits of a postdoc or graduate student for 3 years to genotyping say 800 animals you have close to $300,000 to do a project that will likely produce 1 - 2 good manuscripts. That does not include indirect costs charged by your institution. It means to do this study if funded externally, you need at least a $400,000 grant. This is actually more than the average grant from the USDA. How can such a study be done unless you win a large grant? The biggest headaches for junior scientists in animal genomics now is the fact that not only is USDA as a source of research funding basically broke, but it never gave out large grants for the most part in the first place. The average standard grant from the NIH, the RO1 is about $1.5 million over 4 years whereas it is 3 times smaller for the standard USDA grant over the same period. In fact at many research intensive institutions, winning an RO1 is a prerequisite for tenure and promotion to associate professor in the life (biomedical) sciences, and a renewal of the RO1 is required for promotion to full professor. We in agricultural research, especially animal science have limited options. The NSF funds plant genomics but very little animal genomics unless it is basic animal biology. Unless your work is overtly biomedical, an animal scientist has no hope at the NIH. And USDA is broke. Young scientists are therefore despondent these days. In this modern age, important science is not cheap anymore, and unless one is developing papers in theory and methodology where you need a PC, pad and pencil and strong statistical and programming skills, it is hard to do modern biological science without a lot of money. This is among the reasons that junior scientists align themselves with and conform to where their bread is being buttered. I believe it is called survival or self- preservation. Although part of the solution is re-aligning how funds are allocated, there isn't enough money to go round. Many, many good proposals do not get funded at all funding agencies. I had the privilege of serving on a USDA panel for many years and was sad to see many good proposals go unfunded because there simply isn't enough money to go round. We as a society need to decide what our priorities are and how we allocate scarce resources. Unfortunately that is where politics come in. Politics has been defined as the art of deciding who gets what, when and how much. Our professional societies must be politically active and contribute to the conversation in the public square of why funding research is important and critical to the future of our economic and technological well-being. No amount of complaints we make as scientists will do much good. Then of course, scientists generally treat politics with disdain and low regard, whereas politics and politicians decide on how successful our work turns out to be by making spending decisions! Best wishes to everyone! Ikhide Imumorin, PhD Assistant Professor Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group Dept of Animal Science 267 Morrison Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 USA T 607-255-2850 F 607-255-9829 igi2@cornell.edu http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics ________________________________________ .From: Ignacy Misztal [ignacy@uga.edu] .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 12:14 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper I am not sure that exagerration of potential results or inadequate assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews know the reality and can adjust for it. The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than accomplishing anything important. Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant system. Ignacy Misztal Animal and Dairy Science, University of GA Athens GA 30602, USA tel 706-542-0951 fax:706-583-0274 http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy On Sep 30, 2011, at 2:39 AM, Daniel Gianola wrote: Many of us surely feel that the current system is extraordinarily inefficient and cumbersome. Hopefully, this article will catalyze some action on out part. Daniel ------------------------------------------------------------- Q&A: Overhaul the Funding System Can science step in to find the best ways of allocating money for research? By Kerry Grens | September 28, 2011 It's a perennial complaint among scientists: grant writing takes up too much time. "I think that there's pretty much wide agreement that scientists have to spend a lot of time to write proposals, to review proposals, to write progress reports, final reports, and do lots of things that are not necessarily contributing to science," said John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford University's School of Medicine. But it isn't just time that's spent unwisely, but billions and billions of dollars that could be allocated in smarter ways, Ioannidis wrote in a comment in today's Nature. The Scientist spoke with Ioannidis about his ideas to fix science funding in the United States. The Scientist: What are the current problems with the way science is funded in America? John Ioannidis: I think that the way that the funding system works, people have to promise something that is exaggerated. They have to compete against others who are promising something that would be spectacular, and therefore they need to make a huge claim that often they may not be able to deliver, just because of the odds of science. Or they have to promise something that would be highly predictable. It's something that they may have already done or that they know what the answer is going to be... So in a sense I think the current system is almost destroying the potential for innovative ideas and in many cases it even fosters mediocrity. TS: What's the best way to improve upon the current funding paradigm? JI: What I advocated in that comment was we need to have some studies to directly test, ideally in a randomized fashion, whether one strategy performs better than another. One could think about pilot projects where you have consenting scientists who say I'm willing to be randomized to funding scheme A versus funding scheme B. A could be lottery allocation, for example, and B could be merit-based. If we run these types of studies, in a few years we can see what these scientists have done in the short term. Maybe in the longer term we can also see whether their research really made a difference. I'm in favor of experimenting, because we're spending billions and billions of dollars and we're doing that with no good evidence really. TS: In your proposal for funding scientists according to merit, you mention independent indices to measure a proposal's worth. What are some examples? JI: I think that publications and citations should not be undervalued. They could play a very important role in that assessment. But maybe combining indices and paying attention to quality aspects other than quantity could be informative. One could think of merging indices that exclude self- citation or take into account the impact of papers rather than the amount of papers and adjust for co-authorship. There are indices to do that, and I think they can be objective if you combine them. On top of this we have the opportunity to build additional information into the profile of an investigator based on scientific citizenship practices. Things like sharing of data or protocols, and how often these data and protocols are utilized by other researchers, how much do they contribute to other aspects of improving science. I think it's an opportunity: if we really feel that some practices are essential for science, and we want to improve these practices, then tying them to the funding mechanism is really the prime way to make them happen. TS: In this kind of scheme is seems like weight might be given to more established scientists. What are ways to help younger faculty who don't have such a track record? JI: I would think that this is actually a problem of the current system, rather than any proposal to create something new. The average age for an investigator to get his first RO1 currently in the states is about 40 or 41 years old. People are going through 15 years of being active researchers, and they still don't have independence. So I think that a system that is based on merit could really get younger scientists on board much faster than the current system. Moreover, for example, if you use citation indices, you can always adjust for the number of years that someone has been active. And there's some evidence that the track record of some individuals could be identified from fairly early in their careers. I would also think that for young investigators it's probably okay to move closer to the possibility of an egalitarian sharing, so give some opportunity to lots of people early on for a few years and see what they can do. They will build a track record within a few years, and then you can start having some impact measures or citizenship practice measures. TS: How do we balance the interests of funding sure-bet science or translational research versus very risky or basic science? JI: This is not an easy question. I think people have a different perception of what would be the appropriate allocation between these two strategies. It has to be a common consensus in the scientific community of what we really want to do. Currently I think innovative research is undervalued and not given enough opportunities to succe. J.P.A. Ioannidis, "Fund people not projects," Nature, 477:529-31, 2011. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel Gianola Sewall Wright Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics Department of Animal Sciences Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Department of Dairy Science --------------------------------------------------------------------- Department of Animal Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison 440 Animal Sciences Building 1675 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 USA email: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Telephone: 1-608-265-2054 Fax: 1-608-262-5157 http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/facstaff/Faculty/pages/gianola/index.html "Nature is written in mathematical language" (Galileo Galilei). However, if nothing seems to work, try Bayes:

From gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Sun Oct 2 12:21:59 2011 From: Daniel Gianola Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:21:59 -0500 In my opinion, there an even more important problem: how efficient this system is in generating basic and translational scientific knowledge. It has been estimated that most scientists spend between 2-4 months per year writing and reporting grants. Assuming that the probability of success is 0,25 (optimistic!), this would imply that at least 8 months of paper of grant preparation and administration work are spent per successful proposal. Further, a considerable portion of the grant work includes "para- scientific" issues, such as how students and post-docs are going to be mentored (it is hard to be very creative on this, and most grant writers simply paraphrase sections of successful grants), on methods for developing and fostering diversity, etc. All this is very important, but it is not obviously related to science, and granting agencies should assume that if one, e.g., belongs to Cornell, Wisconsin, Purdue, etc. these institutions have established policies to those effects. Also, it is common that proposals with strong scientific ideas are defeated by proposals with excellent cosmetic appeal. Everybody knows what "grantsman (woman)ship" means... Hence, we end up with an inefficient use of scientific human resources. I have colleagues in medically related areas who spend ALL their time writing grants, without time to think about new ideas, etc. There is the view that our (US) current system is efficient in generating new applications. It is not. The USA files 46 patents per million people, while Sweden gets 100, Japan 107 and Switzerland 115 ("The Economist"). The article by Joannidis is refreshing, and we should try to mobilize to make the current system better, lighter and less cumbersome. An intriguing model is that of the MacArthur foundation: wide panels of scientists would review candidates for funding based primarily on their ideas, potential and past accomplishment based on....a 2 page document, plus a minimum amount of supporting material. I am sure that many ideas would emerge, and I do hope that we can succeed in making the current system less burdensome on scientists, and more efficient from the point of view of generating knowledge. Daniel Gianola ________________________________________ .From: Ikhide Imumorin [igi2@cornell.edu] .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 10:25 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Colleagues, Like many things in life, there are many sides to this story. Institutions like mega grants because they get a lot of indirect costs which help close budget gaps and contribute to running the institutions including the mega salaries of administrators. It is easy, although unfair for successfully funded scientists to label those less successful as simply jealous for lack of similar success with grants. I think one of the major issues is that scientific research has become overly expensive. Let us take animal genomics, a field where most people receiving this email work. The average cost for genotyping using say 50K SNP chip is about $150. To do a study that is adequately powered requires several hundred samples. Add in the salary and benefits of a postdoc or graduate student for 3 years to genotyping say 800 animals you have close to $300,000 to do a project that will likely produce 1 - 2 good manuscripts. That does not include indirect costs charged by your institution. It means to do this study if funded externally, you need at least a $400,000 grant. This is actually more than the average grant from the USDA. How can such a study be done unless you win a large grant? The biggest headaches for junior scientists in animal genomics now is the fact that not only is USDA as a source of research funding basically broke, but it never gave out large grants for the most part in the first place. The average standard grant from the NIH, the RO1 is about $1.5 million over 4 years whereas it is 3 times smaller for the standard USDA grant over the same period. In fact at many research intensive institutions, winning an RO1 is a prerequisite for tenure and promotion to associate professor in the life (biomedical) sciences, and a renewal of the RO1 is required for promotion to full professor. We in agricultural research, especially animal science have limited options. The NSF funds plant genomics but very little animal genomics unless it is basic animal biology. Unless your work is overtly biomedical, an animal scientist has no hope at the NIH. And USDA is broke. Young scientists are therefore despondent these days. In this modern age, important science is not cheap anymore, and unless one is developing papers in theory and methodology where you need a PC, pad and pencil and strong statistical and programming skills, it is hard to do modern biological science without a lot of money. This is among the reasons that junior scientists align themselves with and conform to where their bread is being buttered. I believe it is called survival or self- preservation. Although part of the solution is re-aligning how funds are allocated, there isn't enough money to go round. Many, many good proposals do not get funded at all funding agencies. I had the privilege of serving on a USDA panel for many years and was sad to see many good proposals go unfunded because there simply isn't enough money to go round. We as a society need to decide what our priorities are and how we allocate scarce resources. Unfortunately that is where politics come in. Politics has been defined as the art of deciding who gets what, when and how much. Our professional societies must be politically active and contribute to the conversation in the public square of why funding research is important and critical to the future of our economic and technological well-being. No amount of complaints we make as scientists will do much good. Then of course, scientists generally treat politics with disdain and low regard, whereas politics and politicians decide on how successful our work turns out to be by making spending decisions! Best wishes to everyone! Ikhide Imumorin, PhD Assistant Professor Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group Dept of Animal Science 267 Morrison Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 USA T 607-255-2850 F 607-255-9829 igi2@cornell.edu http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics ________________________________________ .From: Ignacy Misztal [ignacy@uga.edu] .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 12:14 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper I am not sure that exaggeration of potential results or inadequate assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews know the reality and can adjust for it. The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than accomplishing anything important. Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant system. Ignacy Misztal Animal and Dairy Science, University of GA Athens GA 30602, USA tel 706-542-0951 fax:706-583-0274 http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy On Sep 30, 2011, at 2:39 AM, Daniel Gianola wrote: Many of us surely feel that the current system is extraordinarily inefficient and cumbersome. Hopefully, this article will catalyze some action on out part. Daniel Q&A: Overhaul the Funding System Can science step in to find the best ways of allocating money for research? By Kerry Grens | September 28, 2011 It’s a perennial complaint among scientists: grant writing takes up too much time. “I think that there’s pretty much wide agreement that scientists have to spend a lot of time to write proposals, to review proposals, to write progress reports, final reports, and do lots of things that are not necessarily contributing to science,” said John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. But it isn’t just time that’s spent unwisely, but billions and billions of dollars that could be allocated in smarter ways, Ioannidis wrote in a comment in today’s Nature. The Scientist spoke with Ioannidis about his ideas to fix science funding in the United States. The Scientist: What are the current problems with the way science is funded in America? John Ioannidis:I think that the way that the funding system works, people have to promise something that is exaggerated. They have to compete against others who are promising something that would be spectacular, and therefore they need to make a huge claim that often they may not be able to deliver, just because of the odds of science. Or they have to promise something that would be highly predictable. It’s something that they may have already done or that they know what the answer is going to be…So in a sense I think the current system is almost destroying the potential for innovative ideas and in many cases it even fosters mediocrity. TS: What’s the best way to improve upon the current funding paradigm? JI: What I advocated in that comment was we need to have some studies to directly test, ideally in a randomized fashion, whether one strategy performs better than another. One could think about pilot projects where you have consenting scientists who say I’m willing to be randomized to funding scheme A versus funding scheme B. A could be lottery allocation, for example, and B could be merit-based. If we run these types of studies, in a few years we can see what these scientists have done in the short term. Maybe in the longer term we can also see whether their research really made a difference. I’m in favor of experimenting, because we’re spending billions and billions of dollars and we’re doing that with no good evidence really. TS: In your proposal for funding scientists according to merit, you mention independent indices to measure a proposal’s worth. What are some examples? JI: I think that publications and citations should not be undervalued. They could play a very important role in that assessment. But maybe combining indices and paying attention to quality aspects other than quantity could be informative. One could think of merging indices that exclude self- citation or take into account the impact of papers rather than the amount of papers and adjust for co-authorship. There are indices to do that, and I think they can be objective if you combine them. On top of this we have the opportunity to build additional information into the profile of an investigator based on scientific citizenship practices. Things like sharing of data or protocols, and how often these data and protocols are utilized by other researchers, how much do they contribute to other aspects of improving science. I think it’s an opportunity: if we really feel that some practices are essential for science, and we want to improve these practices, then tying them to the funding mechanism is really the prime way to make them happen. TS: In this kind of scheme is seems like weight might be given to more established scientists. What are ways to help younger faculty who don’t have such a track record? JI: I would think that this is actually a problem of the current system, rather than any proposal to create something new. The average age for an investigator to get his first RO1 currently in the states is about 40 or 41 years old. People are going through 15 years of being active researchers, and they still don’t have independence. So I think that a system that is based on merit could really get younger scientists on board much faster than the current system. Moreover, for example, if you use citation indices, you can always adjust for the number of years that someone has been active. And there’s some evidence that the track record of some individuals could be identified from fairly early in their careers. I would also think that for young investigators it’s probably okay to move closer to the possibility of an egalitarian sharing, so give some opportunity to lots of people early on for a few years and see what they can do. They will build a track record within a few years, and then you can start having some impact measures or citizenship practice measures. TS: How do we balance the interests of funding sure-bet science or translational research versus very risky or basic science? JI: This is not an easy question. I think people have a different perception of what would be the appropriate allocation between these two strategies. It has to be a common consensus in the scientific community of what we really want to do. Currently I think innovative research is undervalued and not given enough opportunities to succe. J.P.A. Ioannidis, “Fund people not projects,” Nature, 477:529-31, 2011. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel Gianola Sewall Wright Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics Department of Animal Sciences Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Department of Dairy Science --------------------------------------------------------------------- Department of Animal Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison 440 Animal Sciences Building 1675 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 USA email: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Telephone: 1- 608-265-2054 Fax: 1-608-262-5157 http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/facstaff/Faculty/pages/gianola/index.html "Nature is written in mathematical language" (Galileo Galilei). However, if nothing seems to work, try Bayes:

From yda@umn.edu Sun Oct 2 13:10:21 2011 From: "Yang Da" Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:10:21 -0500 I would raise a question about what USDA research should focus on. The research focus of the past two funding cycles appears to be a huge departure from the past. Childhood obesity should be a popular subject but should that be addressed by NIH? Is the USDA research funding too small a bucket of water for a huge fire? Climate change seems to require a global effort but USDA is taking on that too, although climate change probably could be considered as 'agriculture'. Yang Da Department of Animal Science University of Minnesota

From schmidtc@UDel.Edu Sun Oct 2 14:14:55 2011 Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper From: Carl Schmidt To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 14:14:55 -0500 > In my opinion, there an even more important problem: how efficient this > system is in generating basic and translational scientific knowledge. It > has been estimated that most scientists spend between 2-4 months per year > writing and reporting grants. Assuming that the probability of success is > 0,25 (optimistic!), this would imply that at least 8 months of paper of > grant preparation and administration work are spent per successful > proposal. One of the most important aspects of the job for scientists who have reached that stage of the career where they are writing grants, papers and reports is --- writing grants, papers and reports. Yes this takes a great deal of time, but almost any system for distributing money across a broad spectrum of individuals is going to require some form of both requesting support and accountability. > Further, a considerable portion of the grant work includes "para- > scientific" issues, such as how students and post-docs are going to be > mentored (it is hard to be very creative on this, and most grant writers > simply paraphrase sections of successful grants), on methods for developing > and fostering diversity, etc. All this is very important, but it is not > obviously related to science, and granting agencies should assume that if > one, e.g., belongs to Cornell, Wisconsin, Purdue, etc. these institutions > have established policies to those effects. Yes, this aspect of grant writing is a nuisance, and only reflects political and bureaucratic influences on the funding process. The first time you see these requirements, they are annoying and you are correct in that you keep recycling the same phrases. However, it does create an impetus to look outside your core group of collaborators and institutions to develop new collaborations. > Also, it is common that proposals with strong scientific ideas are defeated > by proposals with excellent cosmetic appeal. Everybody knows what > "grantsman (woman)ship" means... > Actually, what does it mean? To me, successful grant writing means providing a coherent, goal directed and plausible proposal. As my own mentor once commented, "you have to write the proposal for a reviewer who has just gotten to their stack of grants to review, it is 10PM at night, they just had a beer, and they absolutely do not feel like reviewing grants." There is no magic involved, for most of us it is just hard work. However, there is a strong element of luck once you are capable of writing such proposals. > Hence, we end up with an inefficient use of scientific human resources. I > have colleagues in medically related areas who spend ALL their time writing > grants, without time to think about new ideas, etc. I find that writing grants is an incredible time for developing new ideas. It provides for remarkable focus, bringing together your group's data and ideas, reviewing it in the context current knowledge and synthesizing all of this to propose a way forward. Frankly, when I forget the anxiety associated with actually getting funded, I find grant writing invigorating. > > There is the view that our (US) current system is efficient in generating > new applications. It is not. The USA files 46 patents per million people, > while Sweden gets 100, Japan 107 and Switzerland 115 ("The Economist"). I think this observation is imposing too much of a business model on science. Science is not business and it is arguable that attempting to apply a business model to science would be a disaster. The majority of patent applications should arise from industry. Perhaps the poor showing in patents on the part of the US is not a reflection of scientific productivity but commercial productivity. > > The article by Joannidis is refreshing, and we should try to mobilize to > make the current system better, lighter and less cumbersome. An intriguing > model is that of the MacArthur foundation: wide panels of scientists would > review candidates for funding based primarily on their ideas, potential and > past accomplishment based on....a 2 page document, plus a minimum amount of > supporting material. Unfortunately, what this describes is a ... truncated grant proposal. > > I am sure that many ideas would emerge, and I do hope that we can succeed > in making the current system less burdensome on scientists, and more > efficient from the point of view of generating knowledge. Having served on grant reviewing panels, the problem is really quite simple: the US is simply not investing in science to support the shear number of people who would like a career in basic research. On many review panels, approximately half of the submitted grants are not fundable, mostly because they don't actually fit the objectives of the agency, or they were clearly written without new ideas. The panel can typically agree that ~ 1/3 of the total submitted should be funded, despite some individuals quibbling about specific points in specific grants. Then the program coordinator informs the group that the agency can only fund 1/10 to 1/5 of the submitted proposals. There are many, many good proposals that do not get funded, largely due to one simple thing: there is not enough money to go around. Who gets funded then falls to who convinced the greatest number of people on the review panel that their ideas are likely to provide scientific progress. I hate to put it in these terms, but I am not convinced that the system is broken; rather there is simply declining interest on the part of the United States to fund basic research. Carl J. Schmidt Dept. of Animal and Food Sciences University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 302-831-1334 schmidtc@udel.edu

From m.fortes@uq.edu.au Sun Oct 2 18:46:22 2011 From: Marina Fortes Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:46:22 -0500 Not very encouraging scenario for a young scientist, almost finishing the PhD and in need of job like myself ... But, it is what I love doing and at least that article created some discussion! comics attached ________________________________________ .From: Carl Schmidt [schmidtc@UDel.Edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 5:14 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > In my opinion, there an even more important problem: how efficient this > system is in generating basic and translational scientific knowledge. It > has been estimated that most scientists spend between 2-4 months per year > writing and reporting grants. Assuming that the probability of success is > 0,25 (optimistic!), this would imply that at least 8 months of paper of > grant preparation and administration work are spent per successful > proposal. One of the most important aspects of the job for scientists who have reached that stage of the career where they are writing grants, papers and reports is --- writing grants, papers and reports. Yes this takes a great deal of time, but almost any system for distributing money across a broad spectrum of individuals is going to require some form of both requesting support and accountability. > > Further, a considerable portion of the grant work includes "para- > scientific" issues, such as how students and post-docs are going to be > mentored (it is hard to be very creative on this, and most grant writers > simply paraphrase sections of successful grants), on methods for developing > and fostering diversity, etc. All this is very important, but it is not > obviously related to science, and granting agencies should assume that if > one, e.g., belongs to Cornell, Wisconsin, Purdue, etc. these institutions > have established policies to those effects. Yes, this aspect of grant writing is a nuisance, and only reflects political and bureaucratic influences on the funding process. The first time you see these requirements, they are annoying and you are correct in that you keep recycling the same phrases. However, it does create an impetus to look outside your core group of collaborators and institutions to develop new collaborations. > > Also, it is common that proposals with strong scientific ideas are defeated > by proposals with excellent cosmetic appeal. Everybody knows what > "grantsman (woman)ship" means... > Actually, what does it mean? To me, successful grant writing means providing a coherent, goal directed and plausible proposal. As my own mentor once commented, "you have to write the proposal for a reviewer who has just gotten to their stack of grants to review, it is 10PM at night, they just had a beer, and they absolutely do not feel like reviewing grants." There is no magic involved, for most of us it is just hard work. However, there is a strong element of luck once you are capable of writing such proposals. > Hence, we end up with an inefficient use of scientific human resources. I > have colleagues in medically related areas who spend ALL their time writing > grants, without time to think about new ideas, etc. I find that writing grants is an incredible time for developing new ideas. It provides for remarkable focus, bringing together your group's data and ideas, reviewing it in the context current knowledge and synthesizing all of this to propose a way forward. Frankly, when I forget the anxiety associated with actually getting funded, I find grant writing invigorating. > > There is the view that our (US) current system is efficient in generating > new applications. It is not. The USA files 46 patents per million people, > while Sweden gets 100, Japan 107 and Switzerland 115 ("The Economist"). I think this observation is imposing too much of a business model on science. Science is not business and it is arguable that attempting to apply a business model to science would be a disaster. The majority of patent applications should arise from industry. Perhaps the poor showing in patents on the part of the US is not a reflection of scientific productivity but commercial productivity. > > The article by Joannidis is refreshing, and we should try to mobilize to > make the current system better, lighter and less cumbersome. An intriguing > model is that of the MacArthur foundation: wide panels of scientists would > review candidates for funding based primarily on their ideas, potential and > past accomplishment based on....a 2 page document, plus a minimum amount of > supporting material. Unfortunately, what this describes is a ... truncated grant proposal. > > I am sure that many ideas would emerge, and I do hope that we can succeed > in making the current system less burdensome on scientists, and more > efficient from the point of view of generating knowledge. Having served on grant reviewing panels, the problem is really quite simple: the US is simply not investing in science to support the shear number of people who would like a career in basic research. On many review panels, approximately half of the submitted grants are not fundable, mostly because they don't actually fit the objectives of the agency, or they were clearly written without new ideas. The panel can typically agree that ~ 1/3 of the total submitted should be funded, despite some individuals quibbling about specific points in specific grants. Then the program coordinator informs the group that the agency can only fund 1/10 to 1/5 of the submitted proposals. There are many, many good proposals that do not get funded, largely due to one simple thing: there is not enough money to go around. Who gets funded then falls to who convinced the greatest number of people on the review panel that their ideas are likely to provide scientific progress. I hate to put it in these terms, but I am not convinced that the system is broken; rather there is simply declining interest on the part of the United States to fund basic research. Carl J. Schmidt Dept. of Animal and Food Sciences University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 302-831-1334 schmidtc@udel.edu > Daniel Gianola > ________________________________________ > .From: Ikhide Imumorin [igi2@cornell.edu] > .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 10:25 PM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > Dear Colleagues, Like many things in life, there are many sides to this > story. Institutions like mega grants because they get a lot of indirect > costs which help close budget gaps and contribute to running the > institutions including the mega salaries of administrators. > > It is easy, although unfair for successfully funded scientists to label > those less successful as simply jealous for lack of similar success with > grants. I think one of the major issues is that scientific research has > become overly expensive. Let us take animal genomics, a field where most > people receiving this email work. The average cost for genotyping using say > 50K SNP chip is about $150. To do a study that is adequately powered > requires several hundred samples. Add in the salary and benefits of a > postdoc or graduate student for 3 years to genotyping say 800 animals you > have close to $300,000 to do a project that will likely produce 1 - 2 good > manuscripts. That does not include indirect costs charged by your > institution. It means to do this study if funded externally, you need at > least a $400,000 grant. This is actually more than the average grant from > the USDA. How can such a study be done unless you win a large grant? > > The biggest headaches for junior scientists in animal genomics now is the > fact that not only is USDA as a source of research funding basically broke, > but it never gave out large grants for the most part in the first place. > The average standard grant from the NIH, the RO1 is about $1.5 million over > 4 years whereas it is 3 times smaller for the standard USDA grant over the > same period. In fact at many research intensive institutions, winning an > RO1 is a prerequisite for tenure and promotion to associate professor in > the life (biomedical) sciences, and a renewal of the RO1 is required for > promotion to full professor. We in agricultural research, especially animal > science have limited options. The NSF funds plant genomics but very little > animal genomics unless it is basic animal biology. Unless your work is > overtly biomedical, an animal scientist has no hope at the NIH. And USDA is > broke. Young scientists are therefore despondent these days. > > In this modern age, important science is not cheap anymore, and unless one > is developing papers in theory and methodology where you need a PC, pad and > pencil and strong statistical and programming skills, it is hard to do > modern biological science without a lot of money. This is among the reasons > that junior scientists align themselves with and conform to where their > bread is being buttered. I believe it is called survival or self- > preservation. > > Although part of the solution is re-aligning how funds are allocated, there > isn't enough money to go round. Many, many good proposals do not get funded > at all funding agencies. I had the privilege of serving on a USDA panel for > many years and was sad to see many good proposals go unfunded because there > simply isn't enough money to go round. We as a society need to decide what > our priorities are and how we allocate scarce resources. Unfortunately that > is where politics come in. Politics has been defined as the art of deciding > who gets what, when and how much. Our professional societies must be > politically active and contribute to the conversation in the public square > of why funding research is important and critical to the future of our > economic and technological well-being. No amount of complaints we make as > scientists will do much good. Then of course, scientists generally treat > politics with disdain and low regard, whereas politics and politicians > decide on how successful our work turns out to be by making spending > decisions! > > Best wishes to everyone! > > > Ikhide Imumorin, PhD > Assistant Professor > Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group > Dept of Animal Science > 267 Morrison Hall > Cornell University > Ithaca, NY 14853 > USA > T 607-255-2850 > F 607-255-9829 > igi2@cornell.edu > > http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html > > Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - > http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied > Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, > Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > .From: Ignacy Misztal [ignacy@uga.edu] > .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 12:14 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper > > I am not sure that exaggeration of potential results or inadequate > assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews > know the reality and can adjust for it. > > The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect > costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A > scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior > to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense > competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, > and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists > become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than > accomplishing anything important. > > Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force > junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto > politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, > something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. > > Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less > likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or > engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My > few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant > system. > > Ignacy Misztal > Animal and Dairy Science, > University of GA > Athens GA 30602, > USA > tel 706-542-0951 > fax:706-583-0274 > http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy

From Ross.Tellam@csiro.au Sun Oct 2 22:39:00 2011 From: Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:39:00 -0500 Hi Ikhide, I thought that I would add that there are huge databases of genomic results (usually publically available after primary publication), which in my view are quite under-analysed. This is a great opportunity. Cheers Ross ________________________________________ .From: Ikhide Imumorin [igi2@cornell.edu] .Sent: Sunday, 2 October 2011 2:25 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Colleagues, Like many things in life, there are many sides to this story. Institutions like mega grants because they get a lot of indirect costs which help close budget gaps and contribute to running the institutions including the mega salaries of administrators. It is easy, although unfair for successfully funded scientists to label those less successful as simply jealous for lack of similar success with grants. I think one of the major issues is that scientific research has become overly expensive. Let us take animal genomics, a field where most people receiving this email work. The average cost for genotyping using say 50K SNP chip is about $150. To do a study that is adequately powered requires several hundred samples. Add in the salary and benefits of a postdoc or graduate student for 3 years to genotyping say 800 animals you have close to $300,000 to do a project that will likely produce 1 - 2 good manuscripts. That does not include indirect costs charged by your institution. It means to do this study if funded externally, you need at least a $400,000 grant. This is actually more than the average grant from the USDA. How can such a study be done unless you win a large grant? The biggest headaches for junior scientists in animal genomics now is the fact that not only is USDA as a source of research funding basically broke, but it never gave out large grants for the most part in the first place. The average standard grant from the NIH, the RO1 is about $1.5 million over 4 years whereas it is 3 times smaller for the standard USDA grant over the same period. In fact at many research intensive institutions, winning an RO1 is a prerequisite for tenure and promotion to associate professor in the life (biomedical) sciences, and a renewal of the RO1 is required for promotion to full professor. We in agricultural research, especially animal science have limited options. The NSF funds plant genomics but very little animal genomics unless it is basic animal biology. Unless your work is overtly biomedical, an animal scientist has no hope at the NIH. And USDA is broke. Young scientists are therefore despondent these days. In this modern age, important science is not cheap anymore, and unless one is developing papers in theory and methodology where you need a PC, pad and pencil and strong statistical and programming skills, it is hard to do modern biological science without a lot of money. This is among the reasons that junior scientists align themselves with and conform to where their bread is being buttered. I believe it is called survival or self- preservation. Although part of the solution is re-aligning how funds are allocated, there isn't enough money to go round. Many, many good proposals do not get funded at all funding agencies. I had the privilege of serving on a USDA panel for many years and was sad to see many good proposals go unfunded because there simply isn't enough money to go round. We as a society need to decide what our priorities are and how we allocate scarce resources. Unfortunately that is where politics come in. Politics has been defined as the art of deciding who gets what, when and how much. Our professional societies must be politically active and contribute to the conversation in the public square of why funding research is important and critical to the future of our economic and technological well-being. No amount of complaints we make as scientists will do much good. Then of course, scientists generally treat politics with disdain and low regard, whereas politics and politicians decide on how successful our work turns out to be by making spending decisions! Best wishes to everyone! Ikhide Imumorin, PhD Assistant Professor Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group Dept of Animal Science 267 Morrison Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 USA T 607-255-2850 F 607-255-9829 igi2@cornell.edu http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics ________________________________________ .From: Ignacy Misztal [ignacy@uga.edu] .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 12:14 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper I am not sure that exaggeration of potential results or inadequate assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews know the reality and can adjust for it. The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than accomplishing anything important. Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant system. Ignacy Misztal Animal and Dairy Science, University of GA Athens GA 30602, USA tel 706-542-0951 fax:706-583-0274 http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy

From dr.akin.pala@gmail.com Mon Oct 3 02:48:40 2011 From: Akin Pala Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:48:40 -0500 Hi all, I find that EU strategy department is mostly interested in the impact of the research. They found out that large collaborations with huge budgets had more impact compared with small budget projects and they are preparing to encourage scientists in Europe to join such large budget efforts in the upcoming 8th Framework program. That means more funding for established groups with previous accomplishments and huge budgets. The trouble is, it is harder to convince people that novel ideas are worth the try, while small improvements on established research seem like a sure shot. This is especially true when big budgets are concerned. You do not want to blow your big budget on an idea that may or may not succeed. That seemingly crazy idea may be the next ground breaker but you do not fund it because it is too risky for your large budget. I believe in addition to large budget projects and their funding mechanism, there should be a fast funding, fast finishing, small budget research funding system that rewards very innovative ideas. This separate system should provide small budgets to seemingly crazier ideas with convincing arguments, and we may finally get those innovative and "thinking outside the box" research. Universities own funding may provide small budgets, but a separate national system set up especially for innovation would be more useful. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akin Pala http://members.comu.edu.tr/akin/ Department Head of Animal Science Reviewer and rapporteur for the EU On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 06:39, wrote: > Hi Ikhide, > I thought that I would add that there are huge databases of > genomic results (usually publically available after primary publication), > which in my view are quite under-analysed. This is a great opportunity. > > Cheers > Ross > > > ________________________________________ > .From: Ikhide Imumorin [igi2@cornell.edu] > .Sent: Sunday, 2 October 2011 2:25 PM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > Dear Colleagues, Like many things in life, there are many sides to this > story. Institutions like mega grants because they get a lot of indirect > costs which help close budget gaps and contribute to running the > institutions including the mega salaries of administrators. > > It is easy, although unfair for successfully funded scientists to label > those less successful as simply jealous for lack of similar success with > grants. I think one of the major issues is that scientific research has > become overly expensive. Let us take animal genomics, a field where most > people receiving this email work. The average cost for genotyping using say > 50K SNP chip is about $150. To do a study that is adequately powered > requires several hundred samples. Add in the salary and benefits of a > postdoc or graduate student for 3 years to genotyping say 800 animals you > have close to $300,000 to do a project that will likely produce 1 - 2 good > manuscripts. That does not include indirect costs charged by your > institution. It means to do this study if funded externally, you need at > least a $400,000 grant. This is actually more than the average grant from > the USDA. How can such a study be done unless you win a large grant? > > The biggest headaches for junior scientists in animal genomics now is the > fact that not only is USDA as a source of research funding basically broke, > but it never gave out large grants for the most part in the first place. > The average standard grant from the NIH, the RO1 is about $1.5 million over > 4 years whereas it is 3 times smaller for the standard USDA grant over the > same period. In fact at many research intensive institutions, winning an > RO1 is a prerequisite for tenure and promotion to associate professor in > the life (biomedical) sciences, and a renewal of the RO1 is required for > promotion to full professor. We in agricultural research, especially animal > science have limited options. The NSF funds plant genomics but very little > animal genomics unless it is basic animal biology. Unless your work is > overtly biomedical, an animal scientist has no hope at the NIH. And USDA is > broke. Young scientists are therefore despondent these days. > > In this modern age, important science is not cheap anymore, and unless one > is developing papers in theory and methodology where you need a PC, pad and > pencil and strong statistical and programming skills, it is hard to do > modern biological science without a lot of money. This is among the reasons > that junior scientists align themselves with and conform to where their > bread is being buttered. I believe it is called survival or self- > preservation. > > Although part of the solution is re-aligning how funds are allocated, there > isn't enough money to go round. Many, many good proposals do not get funded > at all funding agencies. I had the privilege of serving on a USDA panel for > many years and was sad to see many good proposals go unfunded because there > simply isn't enough money to go round. We as a society need to decide what > our priorities are and how we allocate scarce resources. Unfortunately that > is where politics come in. Politics has been defined as the art of deciding > who gets what, when and how much. Our professional societies must be > politically active and contribute to the conversation in the public square > of why funding research is important and critical to the future of our > economic and technological well-being. No amount of complaints we make as > scientists will do much good. Then of course, scientists generally treat > politics with disdain and low regard, whereas politics and politicians > decide on how successful our work turns out to be by making spending > decisions! > > Best wishes to everyone! > > > Ikhide Imumorin, PhD > Assistant Professor > Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group > Dept of Animal Science > 267 Morrison Hall > Cornell University > Ithaca, NY 14853 > USA > T 607-255-2850 > F 607-255-9829 > igi2@cornell.edu > > http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html > > Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - > http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied > Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, > Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics > > > > ________________________________________ > .From: Ignacy Misztal [ignacy@uga.edu] > .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 12:14 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper > > I am not sure that exaggeration of potential results or inadequate > assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews > know the reality and can adjust for it. > > The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect > costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A > scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior > to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense > competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, > and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists > become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than > accomplishing anything important. > > Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force > junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto > politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, > something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. > > Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less > likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or > engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My > few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant > system. > > Ignacy Misztal > Animal and Dairy Science, > University of GA > Athens GA 30602, > USA > tel 706-542-0951 > fax:706-583-0274 > http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy > > > On Sep 30, 2011, at 2:39 AM, Daniel Gianola wrote: > > Many of us surely feel that the current system is extraordinarily > inefficient and cumbersome. Hopefully, this article will catalyze some > action on out part. > > Daniel > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > Q&A: Overhaul the Funding System > > Can science step in to find the best ways of allocating money for research? > > By Kerry Grens | September 28, 2011 > > It's a perennial complaint among scientists: grant writing takes up too > much time. "I think that there's pretty much wide agreement that scientists > have to spend a lot of time to write proposals, to review proposals, to > write progress reports, final reports, and do lots of things that are not > necessarily contributing to science," said John Ioannidis, a professor at > Stanford University's School of Medicine. > > But it isn't just time that's spent unwisely, but billions and billions of > dollars that could be allocated in smarter ways, Ioannidis wrote in a > comment in today's Nature. The Scientist spoke with Ioannidis about his > ideas to fix science funding in the United States. > > The Scientist: What are the current problems with the way science is funded > in America? > > John Ioannidis: I think that the way that the funding system works, people > have to promise something that is exaggerated. They have to compete against > others who are promising something that would be spectacular, and therefore > they need to make a huge claim that often they may not be able to deliver, > just because of the odds of science. > > Or they have to promise something that would be highly predictable. It's > something that they may have already done or that they know what the answer > is going to be... So in a sense I think the current system is almost > destroying the potential for innovative ideas and in many cases it even > fosters mediocrity. > > TS: What's the best way to improve upon the current funding paradigm? > > JI: What I advocated in that comment was we need to have some studies to > directly test, ideally in a randomized fashion, whether one strategy > performs better than another. One could think about pilot projects where > you have consenting scientists who say I'm willing to be randomized to > funding scheme A versus funding scheme B. A could be lottery allocation, > for example, and B could be merit-based. If we run these types of studies, > in a few years we can see what these scientists have done in the short > term. Maybe in the longer term we can also see whether their research > really made a difference. I'm in favor of experimenting, because we're > spending billions and billions of dollars and we're doing that with no good > evidence really. > > TS: In your proposal for funding scientists according to merit, you mention > independent indices to measure a proposal's worth. What are some examples? > > JI: I think that publications and citations should not be undervalued. They > could play a very important role in that assessment. But maybe combining > indices and paying attention to quality aspects other than quantity could > be informative. One could think of merging indices that exclude self- > citation or take into account the impact of papers rather than the amount > of papers and adjust for co-authorship. There are indices to do that, and > I think they can be objective if you combine them. > > On top of this we have the opportunity to build additional information into > the profile of an investigator based on scientific citizenship practices. > Things like sharing of data or protocols, and how often these data and > protocols are utilized by other researchers, how much do they contribute to > other aspects of improving science. > > I think it's an opportunity: if we really feel that some practices are > essential for science, and we want to improve these practices, then tying > them to the funding mechanism is really the prime way to make them happen. > > TS: In this kind of scheme is seems like weight might be given to more > established scientists. What are ways to help younger faculty who don't > have such a track record? > > JI: I would think that this is actually a problem of the current system, > rather than any proposal to create something new. The average age for an > investigator to get his first RO1 currently in the states is about 40 or 41 > years old. People are going through 15 years of being active researchers, > and they still don't have independence. So I think that a system that is > based on merit could really get younger scientists on board much faster > than the current system. > > Moreover, for example, if you use citation indices, you can always adjust > for the number of years that someone has been active. And there's some > evidence that the track record of some individuals could be identified from > fairly early in their careers. > > I would also think that for young investigators it's probably okay to move > closer to the possibility of an egalitarian sharing, so give some > opportunity to lots of people early on for a few years and see what they can > do. They will build a track record within a few years, and then you can > start having some impact measures or citizenship practice measures. > > TS: How do we balance the interests of funding sure-bet science or > translational research versus very risky or basic science? > > JI: This is not an easy question. I think people have a different perception > of what would be the appropriate allocation between these two strategies. It > has to be a common consensus in the scientific community of what we really > want to do. Currently I think innovative research is undervalued and not > given enough opportunities to succe. > > J.P.A. Ioannidis, "Fund people not projects," Nature, 477:529-31, 2011. > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Daniel Gianola > Sewall Wright Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics > > Department of Animal Sciences Department of Biostatistics and Medical > Informatics Department of Dairy Science > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Department of Animal Sciences > University of Wisconsin-Madison > 440 Animal Sciences Building > 1675 Observatory Dr. > Madison WI 53706 > USA > > email: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu > Telephone: 1-608-265-2054 Fax: 1-608-262-5157 > http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/facstaff/Faculty/pages/gianola/index.html > > "Nature is written in mathematical language" (Galileo Galilei). > However, if nothing seems to work, try Bayes:

From ahmadali@uvas.edu.pk Mon Oct 3 03:11:54 2011 Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper From: "Dr. Ahmad Ali" To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:11:54 -0500 Reference to the ongoing discussions on funding issues for Animal Sciences, I am wondering what could I say when I see myself and my fellow colleagues in Pakistan literally struggling to even save their jobs in the present dearth of funds both at the national and international levels. Coupled with it are the difficulties that the junior scientists have to face simply to run their funded projects successfully because of the severe lack of rapid response supply chain for lab consumables and equipment as well as being at disadvantaged for new fundings because they are junior! Similarly acute shortage of innovative expertise to indetify and prioritise the national demands to undertake research in Animal sciences, literally there seems to be doom and gloom situation as to the future. Political considerations off course are apart from it and more interestingly with more and more competitiveness for publication of research work in quality journals, animal scientists still have to experience disadvantage because none of the Journals in Animal and Agricultural sciences can match the impact factor of journals in Medicine and other areas. Well, this list can go on and on however, I would ask my colleagues at the international level to provide more opportunities of undertaking competitive science for scientists from the developing countries to fill the widening gap of knowledge and expertise between the two worlds and which becomes the major cause of economic and political exploitation of people in the developing countries On 2 October 2011 08:25, Ikhide Imumorin wrote: > Dear Colleagues, Like many things in life, there are many sides to this > story. Institutions like mega grants because they get a lot of indirect > costs which help close budget gaps and contribute to running the > institutions including the mega salaries of administrators. > > It is easy, although unfair for successfully funded scientists to label > those less successful as simply jealous for lack of similar success with > grants. I think one of the major issues is that scientific research has > become overly expensive. Let us take animal genomics, a field where most > people receiving this email work. The average cost for genotyping using say > 50K SNP chip is about $150. To do a study that is adequately powered > requires several hundred samples. Add in the salary and benefits of a > postdoc or graduate student for 3 years to genotyping say 800 animals you > have close to $300,000 to do a project that will likely produce 1 - 2 good > manuscripts. That does not include indirect costs charged by your > institution. It means to do this study if funded externally, you need at > least a $400,000 grant. This is actually more than the average grant from > the USDA. How can such a study be done unless you win a large grant? > > The biggest headaches for junior scientists in animal genomics now is the > fact that not only is USDA as a source of research funding basically broke, > but it never gave out large grants for the most part in the first place. > The average standard grant from the NIH, the RO1 is about $1.5 million over > 4 years whereas it is 3 times smaller for the standard USDA grant over the > same period. In fact at many research intensive institutions, winning an > RO1 is a prerequisite for tenure and promotion to associate professor in > the life (biomedical) sciences, and a renewal of the RO1 is required for > promotion to full professor. We in agricultural research, especially animal > science have limited options. The NSF funds plant genomics but very little > animal genomics unless it is basic animal biology. Unless your work is > overtly biomedical, an animal scientist has no hope at the NIH. And USDA is > broke. Young scientists are therefore despondent these days. > > In this modern age, important science is not cheap anymore, and unless one > is developing papers in theory and methodology where you need a PC, pad and > pencil and strong statistical and programming skills, it is hard to do > modern biological science without a lot of money. This is among the reasons > that junior scientists align themselves with and conform to where their > bread is being buttered. I believe it is called survival or self- > preservation. > > Although part of the solution is re-aligning how funds are allocated, there > isn't enough money to go round. Many, many good proposals do not get funded > at all funding agencies. I had the privilege of serving on a USDA panel for > many years and was sad to see many good proposals go unfunded because there > simply isn't enough money to go round. We as a society need to decide what > our priorities are and how we allocate scarce resources. Unfortunately that > is where politics come in. Politics has been defined as the art of deciding > who gets what, when and how much. Our professional societies must be > politically active and contribute to the conversation in the public square > of why funding research is important and critical to the future of our > economic and technological well-being. No amount of complaints we make as > scientists will do much good. Then of course, scientists generally treat > politics with disdain and low regard, whereas politics and politicians > decide on how successful our work turns out to be by making spending > decisions! > > Best wishes to everyone! > > > Ikhide Imumorin, PhD > Assistant Professor > Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group > Dept of Animal Science > 267 Morrison Hall > Cornell University > Ithaca, NY 14853 > USA > T 607-255-2850 > F 607-255-9829 > igi2@cornell.edu > > http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html > > Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - > http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied > Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, > Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics > > > ________________________________________ > .From: Ignacy Misztal [ignacy@uga.edu] > .Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2011 12:14 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On funding research- The Scientist on a Nature paper > > I am not sure that exaggeration of potential results or inadequate > assessment of a scientist is a problem. After all, panelists on grant reviews > know the reality and can adjust for it. > > The bigger problems could be indirect costs and mega grants. With indirect > costs there is pressure on the faculty to bring large amounts of money. A > scientist with important papers but little money is perceived as inferior > to a scientist with large grants but no important papers. Intense > competition for grants causes groups to create infrastructure for success, > and panel members are not immune to such groups. Individual scientists > become cynical as they see efforts to obtain funding more important than > accomplishing anything important. > > Mega grants starve funding for individual scientists. These grants force > junior scientists to join successful teams, which may be led by de-facto > politicians than scientists. The price of joining may be conformity, > something opposite of what is expected from a scientist. > > Funding problems are clearly different in different areas.They are less > likely to occur in areas of more exact science (e.g., physics or > engineering) where mediocre grant applications are easily identifiable. My > few friends in biology, physics and chemistry seem happy with the grant > system. > > Ignacy Misztal Animal and Dairy Science, University of GA Athens GA 30602, > USA tel 706-542-0951 fax:706-583-0274 http://nce.ads.uga.edu/~ignacy > > > On Sep 30, 2011, at 2:39 AM, Daniel Gianola wrote: > > Many of us surely feel that the current system is extraordinarily > inefficient and cumbersome. Hopefully, this article will catalyze some > action on out part. > > Daniel > > ------------------------------------------------------------- > Q&A: Overhaul the Funding System > > Can science step in to find the best ways of allocating money for research? > > By Kerry Grens | September 28, 2011 > > It's a perennial complaint among scientists: grant writing takes up too > much time. "I think that there's pretty much wide agreement that scientists > have to spend a lot of time to write proposals, to review proposals, to > write progress reports, final reports, and do lots of things that are not > necessarily contributing to science," said John Ioannidis, a professor at > Stanford University's School of Medicine. > > But it isn't just time that's spent unwisely, but billions and billions of > dollars that could be allocated in smarter ways, Ioannidis wrote in a > comment in today's Nature. The Scientist spoke with Ioannidis about his > ideas to fix science funding in the United States. > > The Scientist: What are the current problems with the way science is funded > in America? > > John Ioannidis: I think that the way that the funding system works, people > have to promise something that is exaggerated. They have to compete against > others who are promising something that would be spectacular, and therefore > they need to make a huge claim that often they may not be able to deliver, > just because of the odds of science. > > Or they have to promise something that would be highly predictable. It's > something that they may have already done or that they know what the answer > is going to be... So in a sense I think the current system is almost > destroying the potential for innovative ideas and in many cases it even > fosters mediocrity. > > TS: What's the best way to improve upon the current funding paradigm? > > JI: What I advocated in that comment was we need to have some studies to > directly test, ideally in a randomized fashion, whether one strategy > performs better than another. One could think about pilot projects where > you have consenting scientists who say I'm willing to be randomized to > funding scheme A versus funding scheme B. A could be lottery allocation, > for example, and B could be merit-based. If we run these types of studies, > in a few years we can see what these scientists have done in the short > term. Maybe in the longer term we can also see whether their research > really made a difference. I'm in favor of experimenting, because we're > spending billions and billions of dollars and we're doing that with no good > evidence really. > > TS: In your proposal for funding scientists according to merit, you mention > independent indices to measure a proposal's worth. What are some examples? > > JI: I think that publications and citations should not be undervalued. They > could play a very important role in that assessment. But maybe combining > indices and paying attention to quality aspects other than quantity could > be informative. One could think of merging indices that exclude self- > citation or take into account the impact of papers rather than the amount > of papers and adjust for co-authorship. There are indices to do that, and > I think they can be objective if you combine them. > > On top of this we have the opportunity to build additional information into > the profile of an investigator based on scientific citizenship practices. > Things like sharing of data or protocols, and how often these data and > protocols are utilized by other researchers, how much do they contribute to > other aspects of improving science. > > I think it's an opportunity: if we really feel that some practices are > essential for science, and we want to improve these practices, then tying > them to the funding mechanism is really the prime way to make them happen. > > TS: In this kind of scheme is seems like weight might be given to more > established scientists. What are ways to help younger faculty who don't > have such a track record? > > JI: I would think that this is actually a problem of the current system, > rather than any proposal to create something new. The average age for an > investigator to get his first RO1 currently in the states is about 40 or 41 > years old. People are going through 15 years of being active researchers, > and they still don't have independence. So I think that a system that is > based on merit could really get younger scientists on board much faster > than the current system. > > Moreover, for example, if you use citation indices, you can always adjust > for the number of years that someone has been active. And there's some > evidence that the track record of some individuals could be identified from > fairly early in their careers. > > I would also think that for young investigators it's probably okay to move > closer to the possibility of an egalitarian sharing, so give some > opportunity to lots of people early on for a few years and see what they can > do. They will build a track record within a few years, and then you can > start having some impact measures or citizenship practice measures. > > TS: How do we balance the interests of funding sure-bet science or > translational research versus very risky or basic science? > > JI: This is not an easy question. I think people have a different perception > of what would be the appropriate allocation between these two strategies. It > has to be a common consensus in the scientific community of what we really > want to do. Currently I think innovative research is undervalued and not > given enough opportunities to succe. > > J.P.A. Ioannidis, "Fund people not projects," Nature, 477:529-31, 2011. > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Daniel Gianola > Sewall Wright Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics > > Department of Animal Sciences Department of Biostatistics and Medical > Informatics Department of Dairy Science > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Department of Animal Sciences > University of Wisconsin-Madison > 440 Animal Sciences Building > 1675 Observatory Dr. > Madison WI 53706 > USA > > email: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu > Telephone: 1-608-265-2054 Fax: 1-608-262-5157 > http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/facstaff/Faculty/pages/gianola/index.html > > "Nature is written in mathematical language" (Galileo Galilei). > However, if nothing seems to work, try Bayes:

From dodgson@msu.edu Mon Oct 3 17:12:02 2011 From: Jerry Dodgson Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:12:02 -0500 Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Mon Oct 3 18:12:05 2011 Return-Receipt-To: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Reply-To: gianola@ansci.wisc.edu Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper From: "Daniel Gianola" To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:12:05 -0500 Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV Tue Oct 4 07:22:59 2011 From: "Cole, John" Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 07:22:59 -0500 Dear Group- For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some ideas: - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget - rapid turnaround (60 days? - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon demonstration of substantial progress/results - 1-page annual progress report - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, including travel, computers, and salary/overhead - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative genotyping - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis - resulting publications must be Open Access - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger scientists? The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever sounds interesting. What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. Let's share some new ideas. Best, John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From taylorjerr@missouri.edu Tue Oct 4 07:57:45 2011 From: "Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science)" Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 07:57:45 -0500 Good idea. But... R01's already exist...but not for us. capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + fiull indirect. Jerry ________________________________________ .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Group- For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some ideas: - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget - rapid turnaround (60 days? - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon demonstration of substantial progress/results - 1-page annual progress report - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, including travel, computers, and salary/overhead - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative genotyping - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis - resulting publications must be Open Access - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger scientists? The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever sounds interesting. What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. Let's share some new ideas. Best, John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From taylorjerr@missouri.edu Tue Oct 4 08:03:11 2011 From: "Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science)" Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:03:11 -0500 Let me make sure I made myself clear. I propose that the grant funding program pay $250k per grant in direct and in addition pay full indirect on top of that. Jerry ________________________________________ .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [taylorjerr@missouri.edu] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:57 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Good idea. But... R01's already exist...but not for us. capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + fiull indirect. Jerry ________________________________________ .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Group- For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some ideas: - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget - rapid turnaround (60 days? - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon demonstration of substantial progress/results - 1-page annual progress report - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, including travel, computers, and salary/overhead - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative genotyping - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis - resulting publications must be Open Access - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger scientists? The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever sounds interesting. What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. Let's share some new ideas. Best, John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From dr.akin.pala@gmail.com Tue Oct 4 08:20:44 2011 From: Akin Pala Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:20:44 -0500 It would be nice if we had hard evidence that lets say, 4 projects with 250 000 dollar budgets each would have equal or higher total impact compared to a million dollar project. It would be good enough to convince some policy makers. I believe we can run some kind of analysis to reach a conclusion. I will be in Brussels soon, if anybody is willing to carry the US side, I can try some EU officials to get me access to European data. It does not have to be animal genomics only, it could be a general impact analyses, separated by lets say life sciences, environment, physics etc. I believe it would make a good Nature article and would have the power to affect some policy makers. Otherwise we will just be talking among ourselves. If anyone is up for it, count me in. The more authors we have, the better :) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akin Pala http://members.comu.edu.tr/akin/ Department Head of Animal Science Reviewer and rapporteur for the EU On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 16:03, Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) wrote: > > Let me make sure I made myself clear. > > I propose that the grant funding program pay $250k per grant in direct and > in addition pay full indirect on top of that. > > Jerry > > ________________________________________ > .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [taylorjerr@missouri.edu] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:57 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a  Nature Paper > > > Good idea. But... > > R01's already exist...but not for us. > > capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the > proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. > However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support > vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, > Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. > In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really > is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + > fiull indirect. > > Jerry > > ________________________________________ > .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > Dear Group- > > For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a > new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some > ideas: > > - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget > - rapid turnaround (60 days? > - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all > of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through > - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon > demonstration of substantial progress/results > - 1-page annual progress report > - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, > including travel, computers, and salary/overhead > - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) > - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant > termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative > genotyping > - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory > basis > - resulting publications must be Open Access > - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger > scientists? > > The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's > talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund > projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever > sounds interesting. > > What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is > missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. > Let's share some new ideas. > > Best, > > John > -- > Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) > Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA > Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West > 10300 Baltimore Avenue > Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 > > E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: > 301-504-8092 > > ----- Original Message ----- > .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] > .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > Jerry, > > I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the > Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why > does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal > narrative? > > Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a > simpler, faster, system? > > What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young > scientists to have an impact? > > As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system > distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a > talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive > charm? > > As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your > statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to > communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic > process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows > they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic > relationship. > > Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody > produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the > current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? > > The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, > mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal > versus entropic? Another problem here... > > Cheers, > > Daniel > > Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry > > -----Original Message----- > .From: Jerry Dodgson > .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a  Nature Paper > > > Hi all, > > Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true > that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications > in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson > responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either > physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the > first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project > managers" as in the real business world. > > I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application > (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. > Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the > pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern > recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately > propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually > achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and > it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression > of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs > and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was > more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish > wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine > and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, > peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. > > I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and > that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the > stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based > on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were > more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, > or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number > of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of > their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the > majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do > think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited > funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if > the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not > believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use > of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will > continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both > with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If > not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. > > Regards, Jerry

From John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV Tue Oct 4 08:35:24 2011 From: "Cole, John" Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:35:24 -0500 Dear Akin- That's not a bad idea, but is there consensus on how best to measure impact? I could talk to some people on this end about gathering data. John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Akin Pala [mailto:dr.akin.pala@gmail.com] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 08:20 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper It would be nice if we had hard evidence that lets say, 4 projects with 250 000 dollar budgets each would have equal or higher total impact compared to a million dollar project. It would be good enough to convince some policy makers. I believe we can run some kind of analysis to reach a conclusion. I will be in Brussels soon, if anybody is willing to carry the US side, I can try some EU officials to get me access to European data. It does not have to be animal genomics only, it could be a general impact analyses, separated by lets say life sciences, environment, physics etc. I believe it would make a good Nature article and would have the power to affect some policy makers. Otherwise we will just be talking among ourselves. If anyone is up for it, count me in. The more authors we have, the better :) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akin Pala http://members.comu.edu.tr/akin/ Department Head of Animal Science Reviewer and rapporteur for the EU On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 16:03, Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) wrote: > > Let me make sure I made myself clear. > > I propose that the grant funding program pay $250k per grant in direct and > in addition pay full indirect on top of that. > > Jerry > > ________________________________________ > .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [taylorjerr@missouri.edu] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:57 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a  Nature Paper > > > Good idea. But... > > R01's already exist...but not for us. > > capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the > proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. > However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support > vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, > Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. > In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really > is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + > fiull indirect. > > Jerry > > ________________________________________ > .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > > Dear Group- > > For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a > new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some > ideas: > > - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget > - rapid turnaround (60 days? > - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all > of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through > - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon > demonstration of substantial progress/results > - 1-page annual progress report > - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, > including travel, computers, and salary/overhead > - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) > - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant > termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative > genotyping > - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory > basis > - resulting publications must be Open Access > - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger > scientists? > > The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's > talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund > projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever > sounds interesting. > > What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is > missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. > Let's share some new ideas. > > Best, > > John > -- > Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) > Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA > Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West > 10300 Baltimore Avenue > Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 > > E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov > Phone: 301-504-8665 > Cell: 301-213-7480 > Fax: 301-504-8092 > > ----- Original Message ----- > .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] > .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > > Jerry, > > I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the > Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why > does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal > narrative? > > Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a > simpler, faster, system? > > What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young > scientists to have an impact? > > As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system > distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a > talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive > charm? > > As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your > statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to > communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic > process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows > they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic > relationship. > > Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody > produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the > current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? > > The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, > mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal > versus entropic? Another problem here... > > Cheers, > > Daniel > > Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry > > -----Original Message----- > .From: Jerry Dodgson > .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a   Nature Paper > > > Hi all, > > Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true > that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications > in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson > responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either > physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the > first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project > managers" as in the real business world. > > I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application > (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. > Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the > pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern > recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately > propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually > achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and > it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression > of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs > and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was > more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish > wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine > and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, > peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. > > I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and > that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the > stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based > on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were > more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, > or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number > of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of > their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the > majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do > think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited > funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if > the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not > believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use > of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will > continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both > with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If > not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. > > Regards, Jerry

From John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV Tue Oct 4 08:38:45 2011 From: "Cole, John" Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:38:45 -0500 Jerry- Those are good points, and there is a good discussion to be had about how best to fund infrastructure, which is something I'm not particularly knowledge about. I don't think having an R01-type program for ag is bad, but the funding is not there right now. That's why I'm trying to look at a progeam that could be low cost with reasonable potential for good returns. John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [mailto:taylorjerr@missouri.edu] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 07:54 AM .To: Cole, John; Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Good idea. But... R01's already exist...but not for us. capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + fiull indirect. Jerry ________________________________________ .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Group- For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some ideas: - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget - rapid turnaround (60 days? - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon demonstration of substantial progress/results - 1-page annual progress report - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, including travel, computers, and salary/overhead - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative genotyping - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis - resulting publications must be Open Access - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger scientists? The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever sounds interesting. What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. Let's share some new ideas. Best, John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From taylorjerr@missouri.edu Tue Oct 4 08:54:15 2011 From: "Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science)" Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:54:15 -0500 If you attempt to cut indirect further than the existing USDA 22% this program will not be supported by Experiment Station directors and you may end up stirring up a political storm. Tread gently. Jerry -----Original Message----- .From: Cole, John [mailto:John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 8:39 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry- Those are good points, and there is a good discussion to be had about how best to fund infrastructure, which is something I'm not particularly knowledge about. I don't think having an R01-type program for ag is bad, but the funding is not there right now. That's why I'm trying to look at a progeam that could be low cost with reasonable potential for good returns. John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [mailto:taylorjerr@missouri.edu] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 07:54 AM .To: Cole, John; Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Good idea. But... R01's already exist...but not for us. capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + fiull indirect. Jerry ________________________________________ .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Group- For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some ideas: - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget - rapid turnaround (60 days? - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon demonstration of substantial progress/results - 1-page annual progress report - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, including travel, computers, and salary/overhead - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative genotyping - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis - resulting publications must be Open Access - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger scientists? The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever sounds interesting. What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. Let's share some new ideas. Best, John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From igi2@cornell.edu Tue Oct 4 09:55:43 2011 From: Ikhide Imumorin Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:55:43 -0500 Dear Colleagues I am very happy that my comments have sparked much needed conversations about the sorry state of agricultural research funding. Can somebody explain the historical reasons why NIH and NSF will allow institutions to negotiate indirect cost rates but USDA is fixed at 22%? NIH and NSF grants are exclusive of F&A while USDA says theirs is INCLUSIVE of indirect. There are institutions in the US with indirect cost rate of close to 100% at the NIH (Harvard for instance). This is paid ON TOP of the primary award. I agree with Jerry Taylor that it goes to support research infrastructure, but why does it have to come out of our grants? Why will the USDA not calibrate indirect to either be higher than the current rate or increase grants a little to offset the F&A? For instance foundational grants to individual PI is capped at $500K INCLUDING indirect, which means you actually have roughly 380K available for the research work. I think this goes to the fundamental problem I raised about funding agricultural research, which appears to be totally different from other kinds of science (a la NIH and NSF), and why is that? Making sure we have safe and nutritious food is less important than health or basic science? It goes back to a fundamental issue of priorities. of course it is clear that food is a basic human need but going to the moon or building faster computers or understanding Antarctica is not exactly as critical (I am being somewhat facetious but you all get my point). A new RFA just came out and the USDA will give out only 8 awards of $3 million each over 5 years. That means of all the dozens of grants they will get, only 8 will get funded (this will probably mean a success rate of 20% or less). And the amount of work involved in putting these integrated proposals together will run into tens of thousands of man hours over several months. While I agree with this development, I think the total amount could be reduced and fund more proposals, say fund up to 2x as many at a lower amount. I mean $1.25 million + indirect over 5 years is not too bad, no? Make no mistake, talented young people are fleeing research in agriculture to areas where their research careers stand a chance to being successful. These young people are deploying their skills in genomics, bioinformatics and statistics to problems in disease gene mapping and modeling, epidemiology, etc because that is where the big bucks are. Or they simply go to industry or into policy work. Some even go back to medical or law schools and leave research for good. Let us hope that those with the power to change things will rise to the occasion. Best wishes. Ikhide Imumorin, PhD Assistant Professor Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group Dept of Animal Science 267 Morrison Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 USA T 607-255-2850 F 607-255-9829 igi2@cornell.edu http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics ________________________________________ .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [taylorjerr@missouri.edu] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 9:54 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper If you attempt to cut indirect further than the existing USDA 22% this program will not be supported by Experiment Station directors and you may end up stirring up a political storm. Tread gently. Jerry -----Original Message----- .From: Cole, John [mailto:John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 8:39 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry- Those are good points, and there is a good discussion to be had about how best to fund infrastructure, which is something I'm not particularly knowledge about. I don't think having an R01-type program for ag is bad, but the funding is not there right now. That's why I'm trying to look at a progeam that could be low cost with reasonable potential for good returns. John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [mailto:taylorjerr@missouri.edu] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 07:54 AM .To: Cole, John; Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Good idea. But... R01's already exist...but not for us. capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + fiull indirect. Jerry ________________________________________ .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Group- For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some ideas: - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget - rapid turnaround (60 days? - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon demonstration of substantial progress/results - 1-page annual progress report - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, including travel, computers, and salary/overhead - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative genotyping - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis - resulting publications must be Open Access - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger scientists? The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever sounds interesting. What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. Let's share some new ideas. Best, John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Jerry, I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal narrative? Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a simpler, faster, system? What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young scientists to have an impact? As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive charm? As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic relationship. Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal versus entropic? Another problem here... Cheers, Daniel -----Original Message----- .From: Jerry Dodgson .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Hi all, Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project managers" as in the real business world. I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. Regards, Jerry

From igi2@cornell.edu Tue Oct 4 10:04:24 2011 From: Ikhide Imumorin Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:04:24 -0500 I would be interested in joining together to carry out this study. We can collect data from NSF, NIH, USDA, EPA, DoD from the US and maybe compare with Europe and Japan and see what shakes down!! Ikhide Imumorin, PhD Assistant Professor Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Group Dept of Animal Science 267 Morrison Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 USA T 607-255-2850 F 607-255-9829 igi2@cornell.edu http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/faculty/imumorin.html Associate Editor, Genomics and Quantitative Genetics - http://www.knoblauchpublishing.com Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Animal Research - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/TAAR Review Editor, Frontiers in Genetics - http://www.frontiersin.org/genetics ________________________________________ .From: Akin Pala [dr.akin.pala@gmail.com] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 9:20 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper It would be nice if we had hard evidence that lets say, 4 projects with 250 000 dollar budgets each would have equal or higher total impact compared to a million dollar project. It would be good enough to convince some policy makers. I believe we can run some kind of analysis to reach a conclusion. I will be in Brussels soon, if anybody is willing to carry the US side, I can try some EU officials to get me access to European data. It does not have to be animal genomics only, it could be a general impact analyses, separated by lets say life sciences, environment, physics etc. I believe it would make a good Nature article and would have the power to affect some policy makers. Otherwise we will just be talking among ourselves. If anyone is up for it, count me in. The more authors we have, the better :) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akin Pala http://members.comu.edu.tr/akin/ Department Head of Animal Science Reviewer and rapporteur for the EU On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 16:03, Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) wrote: > > Let me make sure I made myself clear. > > I propose that the grant funding program pay $250k per grant in direct and > in addition pay full indirect on top of that. > > Jerry > > ________________________________________ > .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [taylorjerr@missouri.edu] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:57 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > > Good idea. But... > > R01's already exist...but not for us. > > capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the > proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. > However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support > vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, > Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. > In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really > is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + > fiull indirect. > > Jerry > > ________________________________________ > .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > > Dear Group- > > For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a > new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some > ideas: > > - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget > - rapid turnaround (60 days? > - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all > of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through > - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon > demonstration of substantial progress/results > - 1-page annual progress report > - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, > including travel, computers, and salary/overhead > - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) > - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant > termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative > genotyping > - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory > basis > - resulting publications must be Open Access > - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger > scientists? > > The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's > talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund > projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever > sounds interesting. > > What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is > missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. > Let's share some new ideas. > > Best, > > John > -- > Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) > Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA > Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West > 10300 Baltimore Avenue > Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 > > E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov > Phone: 301-504-8665 > Cell: 301-213-7480 > Fax: 301-504-8092 > > ----- Original Message ----- > .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] > .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > > Jerry, > > I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the > Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why > does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal > narrative? > > Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a > simpler, faster, system? > > What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young > scientists to have an impact? > > As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system > distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a > talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive > charm? > > As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your > statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to > communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic > process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows > they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic > relationship. > > Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody > produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the > current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? > > The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, > mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal > versus entropic? Another problem here... > > Cheers, > > Daniel > > > -----Original Message----- > .From: Jerry Dodgson > .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper > > > Hi all, > > Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true > that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications > in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson > responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either > physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the > first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project > managers" as in the real business world. > > I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application > (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. > Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the > pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern > recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately > propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually > achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and > it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression > of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs > and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was > more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish > wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine > and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, > peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. > > I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and > that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the > stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based > on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were > more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, > or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number > of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of > their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the > majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do > think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited > funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if > the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not > believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use > of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will > continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both > with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If > not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. > > Regards, Jerry

From yurii.aulchenko@gmail.com Tue Oct 4 10:09:55 2011 Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper From: Yury Aulchenko To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:09:55 -0500 Dear John, dear All, > - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget ... > - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger > scientists? > These are very good ideas. Surely there age/stage component should be there. Along these lines: I wonder if tying the length of the proposal to career stage may be a good idea (sorry if this was discussed before and I missed this). E.g. for a senior scientist 1-page proposal is good, because he/she can support the proposal by own references, and the proposal will look credible. A starting scientist may need more space to explain his/her ideas in better details. Yurii ------------------------------------------------------- Yurii Aulchenko, PhD, Dr. Habil. Independent researcher and consultant yurii [dot] aulchenko [at] gmail [dot] com

From John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV Tue Oct 4 10:16:54 2011 From: "Cole, John" Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:16:54 -0500 Deat Yury and Ikhide- Thanks for your comments. Jerry has been very helpfully filling-in gaps in my knowledge, particularly on overhead. I'm looking into the AFRI overhead issue, and will share what I find. John -- Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West 10300 Baltimore Avenue Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: 301-504-8092 ----- Original Message ----- .From: Yury Aulchenko [mailto:yurii.aulchenko@gmail.com] .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 10:09 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear John, dear All, > - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget .. > - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger > scientists? > These are very good ideas. Surely there age/stage component should be there. Along these lines: I wonder if tying the length of the proposal to career stage may be a good idea (sorry if this was discussed before and I missed this). E.g. for a senior scientist 1-page proposal is good, because he/she can support the proposal by own references, and the proposal will look credible. A starting scientist may need more space to explain his/her ideas in better details. Yurii

From dr.akin.pala@gmail.com Tue Oct 4 10:33:24 2011 From: Akin Pala Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:33:24 -0500 There are some discussion papers that goes to measure impact beyond economics. EU has steps in place to measure both short term impact and long term impact. One of the ways they do it is by using surveys. I will definitely know more once I am in Brussels, which is the end of October. I can then contact back with the people who are willing to work on this. There I will also talk to a friend of mine who had a Nature paper on a similar subject, I think it was on the ways researchers try to get more citations. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akin Pala http://members.comu.edu.tr/akin/ Department Head of Animal Science On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 16:35, Cole, John wrote: > > Dear Akin- > > That's not a bad idea, but is there consensus on how best to measure > impact? I could talk to some people on this end about gathering data. > > John > -- > Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) > Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA > Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West > 10300 Baltimore Avenue > Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 > > E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: > 301-504-8092 > > ----- Original Message ----- > .From: Akin Pala [mailto:dr.akin.pala@gmail.com] > .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 08:20 AM > .To: Multiple Recipients of > .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a  Nature Paper > > > It would be nice if we had hard evidence that lets say, 4 projects with 250 > 000 dollar budgets each would have equal or higher total impact compared to > a million dollar project. It would be good enough to convince some policy > makers. I believe we can run some kind of analysis to reach a conclusion. I > will be in Brussels soon, if anybody is willing to carry the US side, I can > try some EU officials to get me access to European data. It does not have > to be animal genomics only, it could be a general impact analyses, > separated by lets say life sciences, environment, physics etc. I believe it > would make a good Nature article and would have the power to affect some > policy makers. Otherwise we will just be talking among > ourselves. > If anyone is up for it, count me in. The more authors we have, the better :) > > Assoc. Prof. Dr. Akin Pala http://members.comu.edu.tr/akin/ Department Head > of Animal Science Reviewer and rapporteur for the EU > > > On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 16:03, Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) > wrote: >> Let me make sure I made myself clear. >> I propose that the grant funding program pay $250k per grant in direct and >> in addition pay full indirect on top of that. >> Jerry >> ________________________________________ >> .From: Taylor, Jerry F. (Animal Science) [taylorjerr@missouri.edu] >> .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:57 AM >> .To: Multiple Recipients of >> .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a  Nature Paper >> >> Good idea. But... >> R01's already exist...but not for us. >> capping overhead is not a good idea. We do this simply to maximize the >> proportion of the small dollars that we recieve that goes into research. >> However, in so doing, we rob our universities of the ability to support >> vitally needed research infrastructures such as libraries, DNA Cores, >> Bioinformatics Cores etc. It's not just paying for administrator's slaries. >> In fact, they get paid even if no grants are brought in. So indirect really >> is used to support our needs. I would propose the $250K budget as direct + >> fiull indirect. >> Jerry >> ________________________________________ >> .From: Cole, John [John.Cole@ARS.USDA.GOV] >> .Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:22 AM >> .To: Multiple Recipients of >> .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper >> >> Dear Group- >> For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a >> new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some >> ideas: >> - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget >> - rapid turnaround (60 days? >> - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all >> of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through >> - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon >> demonstration of substantial progress/results >> - 1-page annual progress report >> - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, >> including travel, computers, and salary/overhead >> - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) >> - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant >> termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative >> genotyping >> - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory >> basis >> - resulting publications must be Open Access >> - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger >> scientists? >> The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's >> talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund >> projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever >> sounds interesting. >> What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is >> missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. >> Let's share some new ideas. >> Best, >> John >> -- >> Dr. John B. Cole, Research Geneticist (Animal) >> Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS, USDA >> Room 306, Bldg 005, BARC-West >> 10300 Baltimore Avenue >> Beltsville, MD 20705-2350 >> E-mail: john.cole@ars.usda.gov Phone: 301-504-8665 Cell: 301-213-7480 Fax: >> 301-504-8092 >> ----- Original Message ----- >> .From: Daniel Gianola [mailto:gianola@ansci.wisc.edu] >> .Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 06:12 PM >> .To: Multiple Recipients of >> >> .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper >> >> Jerry, >> I agree with what most you wrote. On the 2-page thing: why does the >> Macarthur foundation give 500k to awardees based on a brief nomination? Why >> does a nomination to the USA Academy of Scienes require a minimal >> narrative? >> Would the quality of science and its translational effect be hampered by a >> simpler, faster, system? >> What is the current system rewarding? Why is it so difficult for young >> scientists to have an impact? >> As geneticists, we strive for early predictions. Does the current system >> distinguish between a young investigator with enormous talent from a >> talented grant writer, perhaps with less potential but with seductive >> charm? >> As to the idea that writing a grant helps to "coalesce" ideas (not your >> statement), I would argue that a good scientist's first inclnbation is to >> communicate results, as opposed to use what is essentially a bureacratic >> process to get money to fund ideas that (quite often) the scientist knows >> they work before writing a grant, although this is not a deterministic >> relationship. >> Many economists have estimated the returns from research. Can anybody >> produce a quantitative estimate of the superiority of the returns of the >> current systems versus some of the variations that Joannidis advocates? >> The current system produced last year over 1 million refereed articles, >> mostly funded by some agency. What proportion of this output is signal >> versus entropic? Another problem here... >> Cheers, >> Daniel >> >> -----Original Message----- >> .From: Jerry Dodgson >> .Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2011 17:12:02 >> .To: Multiple Recipients of >> .Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a   Nature Paper >> >> Hi all, >> Reflecting back on close to 40 years in the business now, I think it's true >> that P.I.'s today spend significantly more time writing grant applications >> in addition to all their other managerial duties, spokesperson >> responsibilities, etc., leaving less time to actually DO science (either >> physically or mentally). And, isn't this why most of us got into it in the >> first place? Few of us really want to grow up and just be "project >> managers" as in the real business world. >> I don't think we actually spend more (or even as much) time PER application >> (we used to actually have them typed), so we must be writing more of them. >> Part of this is due to the lower success rate - part due to the >> pressure/opportunity to write more applications. Prior to modern >> recombinant DNA technology and now genomics, what one could legitimately >> propose was very much restricted by what one could imagine actually >> achieving. Doing real genetics/breeding has always been a slow process, and >> it would have been foolish to suggest concurrent analysis of the expression >> of every gene in the genome, for example. There were few really large labs >> and not as much incentive to build one. One phenotype/gene at a time was >> more than enough. Now, almost anyone can reasonably propose to accomplish >> wonders with a few hundred more gene chips, access to an Illumina machine >> and a good bioinformatics program. Furthermore, as already mentioned, >> peer/tenure pressure is on to acquire more and more funds. >> I think we can all agree that we'd like the funding pool to be larger, and >> that whatever money there is should be parsed out by peer review. Given the >> stakes involved, would we, as reviewers, be comfortable in doing so based >> on a couple of pages and a good track record? Probably not, unless we were >> more confident that the system could legitimately serve the needs of all, >> or at least most, deserving scientists, rather than building a small number >> of mega-labs (whose members had little chance to replicate the success of >> their mentors). At least within NIFA-AFRI, peer review panels have the >> majority of the clout and are rarely over-ruled by program managers. I do >> think that, for the sake of the future, we need to put more of what limited >> funds exist into single (or a few) investigator-initiated research, even if >> the total funds per award cannot match those of NIH/NSF. I, for one, do not >> believe the large consortia (e.g., CAP projects) are the most efficient use >> of funds. Entrepreneurial scientists (especially the younger ones) will >> continue to come up with new breakthroughs if we give them the chance both >> with appropriate funding mechanisms and thoughtful and fair peer review. If >> not, they will find a better way to make a living and more power to them. >> Regards, Jerry

From dodgson@msu.edu Tue Oct 4 10:52:44 2011 From: Jerry Dodgson Subject: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:52:44 -0500 Greetings once more, I don't know much about MacArthur awards, but I'm told that NAS election involves considerable internal lobbying (and occasional black-balling) among the membership. Not sure that's how we want to award grants. I'm sure the current process can be streamlined somewhat, but if all it took was an updated CV, wouldn't we all submit to every RFA that would permit us? Maybe we can just consult one of the databases of CVs of all relevant scientists and decide to whom the money goes without any application at all (pretty much the MacArthur approach)? Or maybe we need these long applications so that all of us who have no funds to work in the lab have something to keep us busy? Obviously, I have no good answer to the problem (more money would help). I do think USDA currently spends too much effort trying to please special interests among Congress and commodity groups, rather than letting scientists tell them what can be done (through unconstrained, investigator- initiated applications) and what's good (via peer review). NIH and NSF are better at this. I'm dubious about measuring impacts in the short run. Just as indirect costs have lots of necessary infrastructure value that we often tend to ignore, the impact of maintaining a viable, if not thriving, core of quality scientists is huge but hard to measure. My bias is that industry often does better at achieving short term, applied goals and what limited funds are available in the public sector should be more focused on basic science, where I believe most of the big fundamental and technological breakthroughs arise (higher risk but larger and more broad long term payoff). A related question is the "population structure" of science. Most of us, especially on the molecular side, train significantly more students/postdocs than will be needed to replace us (no matter how valuable we see ourselves as being). As I said before, this increased significantly when technology made "hands" rather than good ideas the limiting factor in what is viewed as "research productivity" (especially when measured by publication or monetary metrics). For a while, expansion of resources (especially at NIH, not so much at USDA; to some extent in industry) could (barely) keep pace. At the moment, many grad programs and labs depend on foreign countries as both the source of our trainees and the sink where we hope our trainees eventually can find jobs. This may not continue indefinitely. I find it very hard to predict which students will "succeed" and those who may not meet at least my idea of success, but if I could, would I be justified in recruiting the latter to a career in science, even if they are needed to do the research (while I am busy writing grants)? Perhaps a change to the population structure of science labs could do more to promote efficiency than a change to the grant structure. Again, this probably provides more questions than answers. I'll stop and listen. Regards, Jerry

From thm@life.ku.dk Wed Oct 5 02:36:53 2011 From: "Thomas Mark" To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: Svar: Re: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:36:53 -0500 Dear Group, Just a few comments to John's list of ideas: Some Danish grants have two rounds. In the 1st round the success rate is low, but application is also minimal (present research idea/objectives and a rough budget). If you get through to the 2nd round more details are required, but success rate is high. This is for grants with high awards and I find that it works ok (even after having been turned down in 2nd round). What we don't require is that genotypes funded by public grants are deposited in a public repository upon grant termination which is a pity in my mind. John mentions dublicative efforts, but it could also monopolise our science. Best, Thomas > 04-10-2011 kl. 2:22 pm skrev "Cole, John" : > > Dear Group- > > For the sake of argument, suppose that we were in a position to propose a > new grant program, perhaps as a pilot. How would we structure it? Some > ideas: > > - minimal application; 1-page bio, 1-page idea/proposal, 1-page budget > - rapid turnaround (60 days? > - panelists are identified when proposals are funded -- much easier than all > of the conflict-of-interest hoops we currently jump through > - moderate award -- $250 000 for a two-year project, renewable one time upon > demonstration of substantial progress/results > - 1-page annual progress report > - all monies disbursed upfront, can be used for any legitimate expense, > including travel, computers, and salary/overhead > - cap overhead at 10%(our bosses would hate that) > - any genotypes produced must be deposited in a public repository upon grant > termination -- in animal genomics we waste too much money on duplicative > genotyping > - any IP produced must be licensed on a reasonable and non-discriminatory > basis > - resulting publications must be Open Access > - what about an age/stage-of-career component to privilege younger > scientists? > > The idea is to come up with a new model that can be tested, like Dan's > talking about. I think that it would be very interesting to let panels fund > projects with minimal formal guidelines, I.e., let them fund whatever > sounds interesting. > > What does the group think? Good ideas? Poor ideas? Is something obvious is > missing? There is no point in recreating R01 grants, they already exist. > Let's share some new ideas. > > Best, > > John

From lmatukumalli@nifa.usda.gov Thu Oct 6 09:36:10 2011 From: "Matukumalli, Lakshmi" Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:36:10 -0500 Dear Colleagues, I have been closely listening (stakeholder inputs) to the discussions that were held on this forum over the past week. I have also been sharing the highlights of those discussions with my colleagues here and with the administration. I would like to bring to your attention two pertinent RFAs related to animal sciences that were released recently http://www.nifa.usda.gov/funding/rfas/afri.html Food Security- $19 million NIFA Fellowships Grant Program- $12 million The Food Security RFA specifically includes an area called Improving Animal Health and Production, which will fund projects in: a. Translational Genomics for Disease Resistance in Animals, b. Extension-driven Disease Prevention and Control in Animals, and c. Translational Genomics for Improved Fertility of Animals. Please follow all the RFA instructions carefully, sometimes a good proposal gets rejected by the screening staff for an overlooked RFA instruction. In the recent years genome sequence and SNP genotyping resources were used for Improving the productivity (Genome Selection projects). We also need to focus on using these tools and resources for improving animal health and fertility. We encourage the researchers working in the areas of animal health and fertility to partner with the genomics community for efficiently applying genomic tools for delivering solutions to important animal agricultural problems. We expect the genomics community to play a major role in developing partnerships to be able to support multiple projects in health, growth and nutrition funded by the NIFA. The vision in supporting larger projects was to help solve complex problems Encompassing all the research, extension and education objectives. The onus of encouraging and promoting new talent will fall on the PD proposing these projects. I have been focusing on 5 main areas. 1. Overall funding for animal genomics research 2. Promoting new talent and leadership. 3. Genomics and bioinformatics infrastructure 4. Efficient sharing of data and results from the publicly funded projects 5. Identification of research areas that needs to targeted Thank you, Lakshmi Kumar Matukumalli National Program Leader, Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Division of Animal Systems Institute of Food Production and Sustainability National Institute of Food and Agriculture U.S. Department of Agriculture 800 9th St. SW, Room 3443 Washington, DC 20024 E-mail: lmatukumalli@nifa.usda.gov Office: 202-401-1766 Cell: 202-841-6009 Fax: 202-401-6488 -----Original Message----- .From: Yang Da [mailto:yda@umn.edu] .Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 2:10 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper I would raise a question about what USDA research should focus on. The research focus of the past two funding cycles appears to be a huge departure from the past. Childhood obesity should be a popular subject but should that be addressed by NIH? Is the USDA research funding too small a bucket of water for a huge fire? Climate change seems to require a global effort but USDA is taking on that too, although climate change probably could be considered as 'agriculture'. Yang Da Department of Animal Science University of Minnesota

From JDMurray@UCDavis.Edu Thu Oct 6 10:47:52 2011 Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper From: "James D. Murray" To: Multiple Recipients of Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:47:52 -0500 The RFAs are great, but at some point I believe that the USDA funding needs to encompass genetic engineering as one tool to improve food security and animal health. As in the past the USDA specifically excluded a genetic engineering approach, it is unclear to those of us in the field if our proposals would fit in with, and be fairly evaluated under, the current RFAs. Work in this area is moving rapidly ahead in other countries (for example China), while in this country the number of laboratories involved in the genetic engineering of livestock for use in food production and the number of young scientists is decreasing. Yet it seems to me that we cannot meet the increasing demand that is coming for animal products produced in an economic and environmentally sustainable manner without applying all of the tools we have at our disposal. Jim Murray Department of Animal Science University of California Davis CA 95616 Email: jdmurray@ucdavis.edu -----Original Message----- .From: Matukumalli, Lakshmi [mailto:lmatukumalli@nifa.usda.gov] .Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 7:36 AM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper Dear Colleagues, I have been closely listening (stakeholder inputs) to the discussions that were held on this forum over the past week. I have also been sharing the highlights of those discussions with my colleagues here and with the administration. I would like to bring to your attention two pertinent RFAs related to animal sciences that were released recently http://www.nifa.usda.gov/funding/rfas/afri.html Food Security- $19 million NIFA Fellowships Grant Program- $12 million The Food Security RFA specifically includes an area called Improving Animal Health and Production, which will fund projects in: a. Translational Genomics for Disease Resistance in Animals, b. Extension-driven Disease Prevention and Control in Animals, and c. Translational Genomics for Improved Fertility of Animals. Please follow all the RFA instructions carefully, sometimes a good proposal gets rejected by the screening staff for an overlooked RFA instruction. In the recent years genome sequence and SNP genotyping resources were used for Improving the productivity (Genome Selection projects). We also need to focus on using these tools and resources for improving animal health and fertility. We encourage the researchers working in the areas of animal health and fertility to partner with the genomics community for efficiently applying genomic tools for delivering solutions to important animal agricultural problems. We expect the genomics community to play a major role in developing partnerships to be able to support multiple projects in health, growth and nutrition funded by the NIFA. The vision in supporting larger projects was to help solve complex problems Encompassing all the research, extension and education objectives. The onus of encouraging and promoting new talent will fall on the PD proposing these projects. I have been focusing on 5 main areas. 1. Overall funding for animal genomics research 2. Promoting new talent and leadership. 3. Genomics and bioinformatics infrastructure 4. Efficient sharing of data and results from the publicly funded projects 5. Identification of research areas that needs to targeted Thank you, Lakshmi Kumar Matukumalli National Program Leader, Animal Breeding, Genetics and Genomics Division of Animal Systems Institute of Food Production and Sustainability National Institute of Food and Agriculture U.S. Department of Agriculture 800 9th St. SW, Room 3443 Washington, DC 20024 E-mail: lmatukumalli@nifa.usda.gov Office: 202-401-1766 Cell: 202-841-6009 Fax: 202-401-6488 -----Original Message----- .From: Yang Da [mailto:yda@umn.edu] .Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 2:10 PM .To: Multiple Recipients of .Subject: RE: On Funding Research- The Scientist on a Nature Paper I would raise a question about what USDA research should focus on. The research focus of the past two funding cycles appears to be a huge departure from the past. Childhood obesity should be a popular subject but should that be addressed by NIH? Is the USDA research funding too small a bucket of water for a huge fire? Climate change seems to require a global effort but USDA is taking on that too, although climate change probably could be considered as 'agriculture'. Yang Da Department of Animal Science University of Minnesota

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