3 radical ideas to reform the scientific enterprise

From afar, science is a marvelous thing, a humming engine of discovery that simultaneously reveals the wonders of our world and makes it a better place for all to live in. But when you get a little closer and scrutinize science’s innards, you realize that it’s not exactly a well-oiled machine – far from it. The engine is noisy, inefficient, and in dire need of maintenance.

This engine is a metaphor for the modern scientific enterprise, the system through which scientists today solve problems, generate new knowledge, and innovate. By and large – at least in the academic setting – it boils down to: secure funding, conduct experiments, publish the results, repeat. This monotonous system is in many ways antithetical to the idealized form of science: delving into the unknown and testing sometimes wild ideas to discover something new and potentially world-changing. All too often, funding agencies won’t financially back risky ideas, so money regularly flows to older researchers with many publications under their belt in tried and true areas of research. Younger researchers with fresh hypotheses can be ignored, or worse, openly attacked.

In his forthcoming book, I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right, science journalist Matt Kaplan shined a light on some of the pitfalls of the current system through which science is done. More importantly, he also offered some solutions. Here are three of the most radical:

1. Award grants through a lottery

To receive money for their work, scientists typically write grants to funding agencies explaining their ideas, how these ideas should be tested, and why they should be funded. Agencies first review these proposals for scientific merit, weeding out the bogus from the legitimate. Afterwards, the proposals are sent to committees where members must decide between “proposals that are good and those that are excellent,” Kaplan described. This process is the most time-consuming, and often results in decisions whereby members fall back on factors like age, prestige, and familiarity. In other words, they opt for safety and status quo rather than risky and novel. Instead, at this stage, grants should be awarded randomly with a lottery, Kaplan suggests.

2. Take a note from Willy Wonka with ‘Golden Tickets’

Imagine a committee meeting in which an expert is thoroughly enamored with a new idea presented in a grant, but their colleagues have reservations. Under present conditions, that grant stands no chance. But with a golden ticket, it does.

“The notion behind the golden ticket methodology is that reviewers working on grant-­awarding committees can each be given the power to override their colleagues on one occasion during consideration of applications,” Kaplan explains. “Proposals with unusual ideas and higher risks stand a better chance of getting funding than they do now since just a single reviewer can say, “This is cool, we should give it a try!”

However, such a system would need safeguards to guard against corruption or blatant favoritism. Any reviewer caught selling their tickets or using them regularly on allies would be suspended.

3. Older researchers should step back.

Nobody likes to be told they are old, but the simple fact is that people “become more conservative, rigid, and risk averse as they get older,” Kaplan writes. Scientists are no different. They grow more hostile to new ideas while at the same time drawing exorbitant salaries and competing with younger, more driven scientists. Perhaps they should take a step back, for the good of science?

Kaplan offered ideas for what they could do instead to promote the scientific endeavor.

“If an older scientist has good mentoring abilities, they should move to a smaller lab space, shift to a lower salary, and continue mentoring. If the older scientist is a good author, they should pivot toward writing more books. If they are talented at editing, journals are always in need of people who can help with reviewing and editing articles that come in. What matters most is that they take a step back as they enter old age to free up essential resources for young researchers.”