Theoretical research without projects.
We propose a funding scheme for theoretical research that does not rely on project proposals, but on recent past scientific productivity. Given a quantitative figure of merit on the latter and the total research budget, we introduce a number of policies to decide the allocation of funds in each gran...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2019-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214026 |
| _version_ | 1818572093989584896 |
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| author | Miguel Navascués Costantino Budroni |
| author_facet | Miguel Navascués Costantino Budroni |
| author_sort | Miguel Navascués |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | We propose a funding scheme for theoretical research that does not rely on project proposals, but on recent past scientific productivity. Given a quantitative figure of merit on the latter and the total research budget, we introduce a number of policies to decide the allocation of funds in each grant call. Under some assumptions on scientific productivity, some of such policies are shown to converge, in the limit of many grant calls, to a funding configuration that is close to the maximum total productivity of the whole scientific community. We present numerical simulations showing evidence that these schemes would also perform well in the presence of statistical noise in the scientific productivity and/or its evaluation. Finally, we prove that one of our policies cannot be cheated by individual research units. Our work must be understood as a first step towards a mathematical theory of the research activity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T18:52:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-98a4a996dace4b378cddd16d733e2837 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T18:52:48Z |
| publishDate | 2019-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-98a4a996dace4b378cddd16d733e28372022-12-21T22:51:11ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032019-01-01143e021402610.1371/journal.pone.0214026Theoretical research without projects.Miguel NavascuésCostantino BudroniWe propose a funding scheme for theoretical research that does not rely on project proposals, but on recent past scientific productivity. Given a quantitative figure of merit on the latter and the total research budget, we introduce a number of policies to decide the allocation of funds in each grant call. Under some assumptions on scientific productivity, some of such policies are shown to converge, in the limit of many grant calls, to a funding configuration that is close to the maximum total productivity of the whole scientific community. We present numerical simulations showing evidence that these schemes would also perform well in the presence of statistical noise in the scientific productivity and/or its evaluation. Finally, we prove that one of our policies cannot be cheated by individual research units. Our work must be understood as a first step towards a mathematical theory of the research activity.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214026 |
| spellingShingle | Miguel Navascués Costantino Budroni Theoretical research without projects. PLoS ONE |
| title | Theoretical research without projects. |
| title_full | Theoretical research without projects. |
| title_fullStr | Theoretical research without projects. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Theoretical research without projects. |
| title_short | Theoretical research without projects. |
| title_sort | theoretical research without projects |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214026 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT miguelnavascues theoreticalresearchwithoutprojects AT costantinobudroni theoreticalresearchwithoutprojects |