Letters

EU Science Funding Milestones Miss the Mark

As European scientists who have run large research teams for years, we are concerned about the increasing bureaucratic load for scientists, especially in applying for and handling European Union research funds. One of us has coordinated an EU large-scale facility for nine years, and the other has participated in several EU projects. We have each received (and still receive) funding both from government sources and from a wide variety of private grants. Collecting the funding from a multitude of sources can consume all of a scientist's time. We would like to open discussion on this undesirable development and propose a complementary funding policy.

In EU funding, the border between science and R&D work seems to be fading, as is evident from the increasing emphasis on detailed research plans that must include promises of well-defined scientific results, now called "deliverables," to be produced at clearly fixed time points. If milestones are not met, the reviewer teams, recruited from peer European scientists, can cut funding even in the middle of the granting period. However, history of science indicates that scientific discoveries are highly unpredictable. Thus goal- and milestone-oriented funding policy suits only R&D-type work, for which it was originally developed.

Scientific disciplines differ in many respects, but any ambitious and innovative research includes uncertainty, errors, and misjudgments. Clairvoyant scientists who claim to predict their ground-breaking experiments three to five years ahead are suspect, to say the least. Consequently, many of the planned approaches have to be abandoned or modified during the course of the research. Scientists certainly need goals, but those goals cannot be reached the way a marathon runner would, by following well-marked roads with roadside milestones. Science is more like orienteering, in which the approaches and paths must be selected according to the ever-changing terrain.

The EU's increasing science bureaucracy, requiring laborious and complicated paperwork both in the initial application and in the frequent project reports, has led to the emergence of science consultants: Universities and corporations offer know-how to interpret the deliverables, milestones, Gantt charts, Pert diagrams, and road maps. Obviously, only devoted science managers can keep track of the oversized research networks that the scientists feel obliged to create in order to compete in the funding game. These new professional groups decrease the total research budget available for scientists without improving the quality of science.

The increasing bureaucratic load also decreases the willingness of top scientists to volunteer for review panels of grant applications and for evaluations of research programs. Thus the reviews sometimes are not based on good scientific standards. Unfortunately, means to correct unfair decisions are practically nonexistent in EU funding, which clearly lags behind, for example, the US National Institutes of Health, where the applicants are advised on how to improve their application for the next round.

It might be wise to consider alternative and complementary funding approaches. One possibility is to improve methods for recognizing top
research teams and scientists (not necessarily the ones who can, or have time to, write the best research plans) and to fund them with risk (similar to the venture capitalist model), as long as their productivity stays high. Previous achievements continue to be the best means to predict future success; according to our experience, looking in the rearview mirror works at all stages of research and thus is fair for scientists at all levels of professional maturity.

As considerable amounts of citizens' money are spent on research, everybody—including the scientist—has the right to expect that the money will be used wisely. Present funding practices should be examined and discussed openly. We propose that some large funding body study the effectiveness of different funding and evaluation approaches by applying both open-minded science measures and more strict R&D criteria, and then following the results for the long term. Such a study would also benefit national funding agencies.

To cite Richard Feynman: "The rate of the development of science is not the rate at which you make observations alone but, much more important, the rate at which you create new things to test." Such new things emerge only as research progresses; they are not known in advance. At each milestone, the scientist must study all possible directions, but doing so requires freedom, continuity of funding, and time to think—without wasting energy on irrelevant tasks.