^{[Classic phases of a mania]}

“I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.”

^{^{Sir. Isaac Newton, 1720 ^[1]}}

One of the less illustrious passages of Sir. Isaac Newton's life was the one that marked his life during 1720. At that time England was taken by a frenezy of investment. The now known South Sea Bubble. He predicted the bubble, benefited and still lost it all. He prohibited his friends from ever reminding him of such episode ever again.^[1]

The biggest science funding strategies so far obey cycles of alarm, boom, and bust. What some call bubbles. When there's a major problem identified someone rings the alarm and massive resources pour into the system creating a boom that ends with a bust in what's called loops of positive feedback.

Science funding cycles:

From WWII to 1957 (all fields with possible millitary applications) mostly in physics
From 1957 to 1970 when the sputnik-1 was launched
From 1981 to early 1990's with the cold war
From late 1990's to 2001 with the internet
From 1998 to 2008 biomedical research for NIHs
From 2008 till present due to hackers and AI^[2]^[3]

Sustained growth comes from a sequential response in feedback loops.

Feedback

The biggest problem at the moment I presume is lack of good feedback. Roughly speaking, borrowing from biology there are two kinds of feedback: Negative and Positive

Negative feedback

is a process that allows Homeostasis by sending a signal to the source an decreasing the input till an equilibrium is set. The body temperature in the hypothalamus is controlled by a complex negative feedback system to maintain the temperature in a controlled range, not too high or not too low.

Positive feedback

on the other hand, amplifies a signal until the resources in the system grow exponentially until the input and resources have been exhausted. This is, for instance, the case of childbirth, where the baby pushed the pelvis this increase stimulates the production of oxytocin, that makes the contractions stronger pushing the baby down even more, until the baby is out, normally.

At the moment most of it is Positive feedback loops. The system is successful but not stable.

If you increase research funding automatically you would increase the number of slots for PhDs and postdocs regardless of an increase or not of demand for these positions. At the same time, research budgets have grown but grant success rates have declined.

^{[Alyson Hurt/NPR National Science Foundation: Science and Engineering Indicators 2014]}

Most funding comes as research assistants on research grants. In what's called Baumol's cost disease.

^{[Positive feedback loop with incomplete negative feedback]}

- NSF: 86% supported grad students
- NIH: 78% suported grad students & postdocs^[4]

The negative feedback to stabilize comes mostly from researchers abandoning academia, which is a net negative for research.

^{[Source: Declining success rate despite growth in budgets ]}

All these cycles have a consequence, the prospects of work and education will not be there when the rate of increase in funding stabilizes to no fault of their own.

Universities, when faced with these booms, become less risk averse "leveraging up" debt by constructing more research facilities or remodel labs, paying more for their faculty. If their expectations of future funding are not met they can face financial crisis.^[5]

The Problem With Markets

Me ranting about markets in science is a trend but is an even more important subject of the day. Allocating finite resources is the purpose of the economy. Most theory mandates that in order for markets to be efficient they must trade freely and be self-interested. Here lies the main problem. Markets are extremely subjective.

As you might remember, one of the main reasons science works is due to control of subjectivity. Unfortunately in the case of economics self-interest makes every task a gamble. Thus the reason for the existence of futures contracts.

Who funds research?

^source ^{[Normal procedure for budget definition hierarchy]}

Some money comes form private institutions, perhaps the best example of this has been Bell Labs that gave us such advancements as the transistor, but the vast majority comes from gubernamental organizations.

The NIH funds provides almost 2/3 of all research that flows to universities. Whose budget adjusted to inflation depended on sustained uncontrolled growth in order to keep filled the continuously growing positions at universities.^[6]

^{[Figures for 2014 are preliminary. Figures for 2000-2013 have been adjusted for inflation using the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index. Federal stimulus funds in 2009-2010 came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.NPR analysis of NIH data; NIH (PDF: 2000-2013, 2014); recovery.nih.gov]}

This science budget has many points of competition. First against civil groups (banks, churches, hospitals, labor unions...every social group you can think of). Later by particular organizations out of the branches of science.

Biomedical sciences have far stronger support than other areas of scientific research. Mainly due to the fact that voluntary organizations care deeply and passionately about research for diseases. They are usually conformed of patients and their family.

This is one of the reasons sporadic possible consequences for humans found during research are so interesting for researchers. Even if their research is not related to or intended humans at all, as is a big opportunity for funding.

Politics and passionate interest are a huge bottleneck for funding. This is problematic since even when there are scientific societies that advocate for public policy most of the time researchers remain on the sidelines.

Is almost infuriating as one would imagine science being generally a virtuous cause, more dependent on public funding and filled with highly educated people that could make a stronger case when compared to other interests (if one assumes that science stimulates long term the economy and benefits mankind).

Most scientists are not affiliated with a professional society with an advocacy program. Is a must. Public advocacy programs in most countries are a novelty for professional scientists. Being part of one means being active in it, which is now easier than ever thanks to social media.^[7]

Transparency of local funding for grant applications and courtesy habits like a printed thank you letter to elected officials help, as is part of the social layer that is politics. Politicians tend to be poorly educated in the sciences and this is another part of science communication. One that is severely neglected.^[8]

How grants work?

Most grants are of the focused research type. Someone submits a project and a limited funding is given for that project alone.

^{[Process of grant application]}

Some of the problems with preselected focus are:

It may become apparent after beginning that it will take longer to produce any result than originally expected without being able to backtrack the grant.
An interesting finding may remain unexplored unless somehow there's some extra money left from the original project.
Like in any other system with strict focus bottlenecks form and 50% of a scientist time can be spent writing grants.

The relationship of the science's quality and the ability to maintain continuous support has become almost stochastic.
Lack of interdisciplinary contact between scientists is a breeding ground for things like the examples depicted in the image.^[9]
Requirements for scheduled results and previously supported data

In the case of A, a high impact journal publishes in the 1990's a doctor rediscovering integration^[10] (highschool calculus). In the case of B a physicist rediscovered mathematical group theory, which is kind of cool.^[11].

This system furthers active areas of research but stagnates and even hurts cutting-edge discoveries. Cutting edge discoveries usually benefit form open-ended funding. Where the person is funded not the project.