More money would flow into a system that rewards grant-writing rather than discovery

The argument

The second argument concerns where additional funding would actually go. Proponents of this position argue that research money is not handed to scientists but to a system of competitive grants, panels and institutional overheads, and that the behaviour this system rewards is not the behaviour that produces discoveries. Until that changes, they argue, increasing the budget increases the volume of the same activity. Proponents argue the incentives are well recognised by researchers themselves. Because awards go to proposals that look likely to succeed, the safe and incremental project is favoured over the speculative one, which inverts the case for public funding of risky work. Because careers depend on publication, the reward falls on producing papers rather than on checking whether previous results hold, so replication is neglected and errors persist in the literature. Because applications take months, senior researchers spend much of their time writing them rather than doing research. And because universities take a share of every grant, institutions press staff towards whatever is fundable rather than whatever is important. They add that more money would intensify each of these effects. Proponents argue that a larger pot draws more applicants, which lowers success rates, which increases the time spent applying and the premium on proposals that are safe and fashionable. On this account the binding constraint on scientific progress is not the quantity of money but the way it is distributed, and spending more without reform buys more administration, more cautious projects and more unverified papers. The argument concludes that scientific research should not get more governmental funding until the allocation of what it already receives is fixed.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics answer that this is an argument for reforming allocation, not for holding the budget down, and that the two can be done at once; indeed many of the reforms proposed, including longer grants, funding people rather than projects and paying for replication, cost more rather than less. They add that low success rates are themselves a symptom of underfunding, since they mean many proposals judged worth doing are not done. Critics also note that the system described has nonetheless produced the discoveries the argument's own side relies on, which suggests its flaws are a reason for repair rather than evidence that more money is wasted.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That money passes through grants and institutions is true of most public spending and says nothing about whether the amount is right. [Rejecting P2] The reforms usually proposed for these incentives, including longer grants, funding people rather than projects and paying for replication, cost more rather than less. [Rejecting P3] Low success rates mean many proposals judged worth doing are not done, which is a symptom of underfunding rather than an argument against more funding. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that allocation needs reform, which can be pursued alongside an increase rather than instead of one.