Category Archives: Funding

NSF-Funded Collections Aren’t Dead Yet

Posted on June 3, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

A couple of weeks ago, I described how NSF’s collections program was going to be cut–and why that would be a very stupid thing to do. Well, it looks like NSF has granted the program a reprieve (boldface mine): In … Continue reading →

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NIH Makes A Good Move For Post-Docs

Posted on May 19, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

But there’s still more that’s needed. A while ago, I predicted that, were the Obama administration to raise the overtime salary ceiling to around $50,000 (if you work more than forty hours per week and earn under this amount, you … Continue reading →

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Another Cost Of Insufficient Science Funding

Posted on May 5, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

In a story revolving around paleobiologist Hope Jahren’s need to acquire funding, Jahren makes a point you might have heard here once or twice: When we talk in this presidential campaign about “falling behind” in the race to produce scientists, … Continue reading →

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Scientific Publishing And The Culture Canard: Papers Are Currency

Posted on April 19, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

Another day, another article which discusses ‘scientific culture’ in biology without referencing funding. This is getting old, but we’ll try this again–I’ll chalk my previous failure up to instructor error (after which, I’m just going to conclude writers of said … Continue reading →

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Grants: Load, Deadlines, And Gamesmanship

Posted on April 18, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

The NSF conducted a very interesting experiment which halved the number of grant proposals (boldface mine): Annual or semiannual grant deadlines lead to enormous spikes in submissions, which in turn cause headaches for the program managers who have to organize … Continue reading →

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Biology Papers Are Currency

Posted on April 11, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

I recently came across this putzish Ars Technica story about preprints in biology, and it demostrates how little many supposedly knowledgeable people understand the professional incentives of biologists, best demonstrated by this section (boldface mine): This move has been met … Continue reading →

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Decades of Experience And No Details

Posted on April 9, 2016 by mikethemadbiologist

By way of Steve Randy Waldman, we come across this Max Sawicky post, describing the lack of detail [cough magic asterisks cough] in Clinton’s universal pre-K program. This lack of detail is all the more surprising, since Clinton has been … Continue reading →

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Some Good Funding News About Drug-Resistant Bacteria

Posted on December 17, 2015 by mikethemadbiologist

If the proposed Congressional deal goes through, funding to study antimicrobial resistance will increase from $471 million to $774 million. Unfortunately, AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), which studies hospital and medical interventions, will be cut from $364 million … Continue reading →

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Going Manhattan Project on Science’s Ass: You Get the Science You (Don’t) Pay For

Posted on December 8, 2015 by mikethemadbiologist

I’ve argued before that the funding structure of science hurts our ability to conduct experiments at the appropriate scale, and that this should be fixed by ‘going Manhattan Project on its ass.’ Here’s what I mean (boldface added): What I’ll … Continue reading →

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Who Gets Screwed By Funding Changes: RFAs and Anti-Conservatism

Posted on November 12, 2015 by mikethemadbiologist

Last week, I detailed my problems with a report that provided a whole mess of inane recommendations on how to make science funding better. DrugMonkey makes a good point about how RFAs, requests for admissions, which call for proposals to … Continue reading →

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