We are attempting to solve this by identifying and rewarding reproducible research (www.reproducibilityinitiative.org). However, it has been incredibly difficult to get funding to conduct the validation studies due to the obsession of funding "novel" results, rather than funding the replication studies required to identify reproducible research. Funders need to step up to solve this problem.
I totally agree with you and congratulations on creating such a widely used and transformative product, I hope that in time biology will also adopt the arXiv model.
I totally agree regarding the decline of universities. In particular I think the research side will be the first to shift away from universities; at least with education you are essentially paying for a brand name which has inherent value. With research, the principle investigator writes the grant to pay their own salary, the salaries of their graduate students and postdocs, and their equipment. The university then takes almost all the scientists IP and charges "indirect costs" equivalent to more than 50% of the grant to supply "Facilities and Administration" - which is what exactly? Lights, building space, and a whole lot of bureaucracy.
Already, some really innovative initiatives are getting around this problem. The Pasadena Bioscience Collaborative offers lab space and equipment for ~$1,000 per month (no contract required!) and the EMBARK program administers scientists grants and encourages them to outsource experiments to core facility specialists (while providing access to a basic shared lab for those experiments that can't be easily outsourced). Both initiatives offer ways for scientists to avoid high indirect costs and burdensome admin - and importantly the scientists retain 100% of their IP!
These initiatives are the way of the future - it's hard to see how big, inefficient universities will be able to attract the top talent for much longer.
As an university researcher (faculty at University of Miami) I agree that efficiency of spending is very important - what is interesting is that researchers are often unaware that by making use of economies of scale that exist at specialized core facilities it is often cheaper than conducting experiments in house (a good example is cloning).
In some fields salaries might comprise the majority of lab costs but in biology this is not the case - experimental costs which can be spent as the researcher sees fit comprise the majority of costs. These costs can be outsourced to pay core facilities (currently $2B is spent outsourcing experiments to core facilities annually in the US).
While i agree that it is possible for researchers to establish where specialized equipment resides by reading papers and chatting with colleagues at conferences this is obviously inefficient and an incomplete record of potential providers. A centralized marketplace is a more efficient method for identifying providers.
"A centralized marketplace is a more efficient method for identifying providers."
That's spot on. Access to resources shouldn't be based on "special knowledge" Success in research should be a result of insights, creativity, and hard work, not "being in the know." Best of luck.
You work at the University of Miami? Any chance you have internships available for UM students? (I sent an email through the contact us page on your website as well)
The current system for evaluating a scientists reputation and integrity is hardly perfect - it is estimated that fewer than 50% of data in published papers can be reproduced (http://lifescivc.com/2011/03/academic-bias-biotech-failures/). By creating a marketplace that has feedback and reputation it might be possible to actually improve basic "integrity" in scientific research
Actually I think this has the potential to increase the connections between different fields because it will truly incentivize collaborations through a market mechanism rather than the bartering system which currently exists (i.e I'll trade you conducting this expt for authorship).
The way I envision it working is that the person who has the grand idea obtains a grant and then breaks it up into microgrants which are outsourced to specialists to conduct the expts efficiently. The results are then combined to obtain a broad understanding of the particular question being asked by the grant holder. The broad results can be communicated to all participants.
You are alluding to _co_llaborations, while describing a market-based system in which "specialists" would would essentially _sub_contract to your grand idea. In effect just veiling the (current) feudalism in market PR, as it happened to the economy at the turn of the last century.
Managing intellectual peers as subordinates will not work, if the "specialist" is any smart, not just educated.
Btw: a grand idea is worth nothing as it is: everybody has grand ideas. Verne had the idea to go to the Moon, wrote it (ie. published it). I wonder why he is not credited for it...
Hi Jess - Science Exchange allows scientists to outsource individual experiments to specialist labs and facilities. For example gene expression profiling can be outsourced to specialist microarray providers. This is becoming a bigger and bigger issue as technology advances and scientists are forced to become more specialized.
I guess you're better off calling it 'lab exchange' or something then. There's no 'science' being exchanged, just some elbow-grease work (I don't know anything about the field you're in, so I may be oversimplifying, but I know some lab techs in the life sciences and it seems you don't need to be particularly bright to do that kind of work - just have, admittedly quite thorough, skills training).
I get the strong impression you have a very specific area or areas of science in mind, but you seem to speak in generalities. One can't outsource, e.g., physics, anthropology, or geology. So what specific fields typically run experiments which can be outsourced? Is it just biology?
In some sense some of experimental physics is getting "outsourced" already. For example (my understanding is that) there are many physicists working on experimental data coming out of CERN who are not participating actual design/running of the system. In that sense they are outsourcing the work to specialists.
This is a bad example, as those scientist are still part of the collaboration. (I was one of them.) The key part of outsourcing is that it is work done in exchange for money. And it's an exchange between two independent parties which are each self interested.
Otherwise, every time a business split up a project between multiple people or departments it would be "outsourcing".
CERN is a particularly bad example, because it has deep heritage from Manhattan, as in being spoilt by the abuse of power. It is a self-referential hierarchy operating on the need to know basis, which helps to avoid real challenges (obviously ruining the research/educational aspect of the projects).
Many physicists accept to operate at the need to know level and do not satisfy their curiosity, for fear of being left to "find other opportunities".
Yeah, and it's really just getting specialized facilities to do the grunt work. The 'research' itself isn't outsourced or whatever, it just looks like a system for more efficient allocation/utilization of capital equipment. Which is only relevant for an, in my estimate, smallish percentage of researchers (percentage-wise, maybe high single or low double digits?)
