Ever-increasing competition for unfairly limited funding is backfiring. Territorial allocations and research topic fixing is hurting the creativity of researchers and specially demotivating the younger generation.

The title of this post may sound too provocative, but let me quote three dialogs, which I have witnessed in the last six months, to show how real this threat is. You may have heard such conversations as well.

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1. Prof. A tells visitor B: “Your research suggestion is indeed interesting and we can do it but prof. C may want to do it as well, and he is a good friend.”
2. Young senior D replies to junior E’s proposal of trying slightly different samples: “Those kind of samples are investigated by Prof. F and this is a very competitive field.”
3. Senior G, who is planning to submit a proposal, hears about the intention of Prof. H, who works on a similar subject and wants to submit a proposal as well. He decides to make sure their proposal titles are different before submission.

On my desk, right in front of the computer screen, lies a pile of paper. This pile gives me headaches, keeps me awake at night, and is a source of frustration on sunny weekends. It is the pile of unfinished manuscripts, gathered and carried along from earlier positions as a postdoc. Every paper has a story attached to it. Some papers are only in their first version, hardly more than a collection of raw data. Others have seen many revisions, have passed the eyes of multiple co-authors, and have got stuck just before submission, because something just is not quite right. There are papers of PhD students, co-workers, and of myself as leading author. Some contain data taken two years ago.

I am wondering how others are dealing with their unpublished data. Do you have a drawer full of brilliant work yet to be published? Or are you completely up to date with your results? For some people, it may be a reason for boasting: look at how many data I still have on the shelf! For a starting academic, unpublished data can be a life saver in times that you are starting a new lab and you need results to cover the gaps in your publication record. However, the pile also represents months of painstaking experiments, data analysis, and theory, lying there going to waste and most importantly – not being cited.

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Some time ago I described my first steps in setting up a research group at a UK university. After one year it is time to evaluate some of the developments made so far. In general, I am quite happy with the progress. Certainly it has not been a very high-flying year scientifically. However, when you can forget for a moment the pressure to deliver, running your own little research group is actually very much fun. I will point out some aspects which have been particularly important this year.

Bringing in money
The first thing is to break the negative spiral resulting from insufficient research budgets. Without ’seedcorn’ money, it will be difficult to do research and therefore to attract more funding. There are some opportunities for getting this kind of funding especially for new academics. This year I have been successful in getting money from the Royal Society (£15,000, Research Grant) and from the EPSRC (£125,000, First Grant), mainly for equipment. To give an impression of the success rate, 2 out of 7 First Grant proposals were funded in this panel. So even in this special round for starting academics, 72% did not get the money needed to start up their first research project. It cannot be underestimated how crucial these small amounts of money are for taking off during the first years. Also not unimportant is the fact that bringing in money turns out to be one of your most important deliverables which will be highly evaluated by your university, most of times above publications or teaching.

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Social networks are everywhere. Personally I like Facebook to keep track of old friends and add new ones. These friends are mostly of nonscientific background. Until recently I had never realized the importance of social networks in science. When you do your PhD and perhaps some postdoc projects here and there, it is hard to think about what it takes to become a successful scientist other than doing brilliant science. Although scientific skills are undoubtedly important, I believe that one of the key ingredients which can make or break a scientific career is a good network of friends.

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Finding a suitable research subject is about the most difficult task in the life of a researcher. And professional scientists are confronted with this task continuously all through their career.

You do not want to work on a field that has existed for a long time and where great scientists have made large contributions. The suicidal defense that people bring forward when they embark on an almost exhausted field is:  “there is still so much to do”.

I suppose you have found your almost virgin territory and that it has made, or will make, you famous. You will however only make a large impression with your activities in your new field if many other people will work on this field as well. But if the field is indeed as promising as you think it is, you do not have to wait long,  and your terrain will be rampaged  by the  competition.

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Progress of science is greatly enhanced when scientists collaborate intensively. The public at large believes so. To them the scientific community is one great society of people that are nice to each other, that are willing to help each other and are willing to share their insights. Collaborations will speed up the time it takes for the world to get at the Truth.

Forcing scientific collaborations upon scientists is one way for politicians, science policy makers and science managers to manipulate scientists. In their eyes the self-serving of prima-donna scientists leads to a waste of tax-payers money. It is the big ego of scientists that sits in the way of scientific progress. 

Look at the all the programs of the European Union or of Nato. In these bureaucratic institutions scientific collaborations are goals in themselves. The more partners you find in more different countries the higher your chances are of getting their support.

If you fall in this bureaucratic trap and take all these collaboration requests seriously you will end up spending your scientific life in restaurants all over Europe negotiating with local operators who have given up doing science a long time ago.

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