Originally posted June 1, 2010

Your money at work?

June 1, 2010

Ever wonder where all of your tax money goes or what good it does? I sure do. As a scientist, I even have the same questions about science funding. I mean, I vaguely know what’s going on. It’s good for the country to support science. Scientific research leads to new technologies, which lead to new industries, which lead to a better quality of life for all of us. Aside from these benefits, funding for research keeps us competitive in the global marketplace. It ensures the training of new scientists. And sometimes, funding gives us collective hopes and aspirations.

(Credit Neil Armstrong, NASA)

At least, that’s the simple explanation. The truth of the matter is that it is really REALLY difficult to come up with a marketable technology. There are several reasons for this. First and foremost is that scientists have no idea what is going on. Now, before you run with that statement … let me explain. We devise experiments that we think are going to lead to a certain result. We try to design the perfect anti-cancer drug. We try to come up with the world’s greatest lithium ion battery. We want to make a solar cell that can compete with fossil fuel. We think we have an idea about how to do all of these things. But the truth is we don’t know. We don’t know what will happen until we try our experiments, until we test our ideas. Sometimes we are right. Lots of times, we are wrong. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way science operates.

So, how should we fund science? Should the government give more grants so that there is a greater probability for finding answers to the technical problems we face? (“YES!” says the scientist whose livelihood depends on these grants.) Should we change the grant structure to ensure efficiency in bringing results to market? Is there even a good answer to this question?

The purpose of a recent conference in Washington DC was to understand ways we can figure out how research money translates into useful technologies. With the budgets of many institutions (NIH, NASA, etc) being in the billions of dollars, it makes sense that we should be able to quantify the effects (patents, job creation, integration of new technologies, etc) of all of this money. I have no idea what the ultimate findings will be (more money and less oversight, less money and more oversight, more money and more oversight, every scientist gets his or her own American Express Black Card). However, coming up with logical metrics to describe what happens when you give scientists money is a very good thing. Let’s hope that these policy makers/scientists/statisticians can figure out a way to do it.