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The Glory of Science

By Henri - Posted on 11 February 2009

Or How Young Scientists Lose Their Way on the Road to Funding

Science is a competitive existence that attracts a lot of people who want to make a difference. Unfortunately the higher you get in the hierarchy the less work you actually get to do that relates to your field of study. By the time you are totally in charge of your own projects your time is all consumed by raising money.

This is like taking a CEO of a major Corporation and making him raise cash on the street corner every quarter to pay his executives salaries.

Maybe that would do away with excessive compensation, but it would also waste a huge amount of presumably valuable time.

It is hard to describe what it takes to get your great idea funded at a research institution without having your audience’s eyes glaze over. Writing grants and proposals and applications for funding is not the stuff of dreams. It is just the only way any science ever gets done at all in the world we have created. Sublimating your curiosity to the need just to put food on your table at home is still the way of the scientist in these enlightened times.

I do think a different system could be developed. We need to invent an infrastructure for scientific funding. Doing so would create a better world for scientists and the rest of us and probably cost less money in the bargain.

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