Lots of arguments in👇I disagree with or are questionable. To start with a point of agreement: Yes, current modes for getting competitive research grants are not ideal. But I am fairly skeptical the proposed alternative is superior 1/
Let's leave aside that 'impact' seems to be equated with publishing and citations: Getting paid for publications would, in the current system, most likely not improve research and funding allocation. I think it wouldn't be different than it is right now where researchers 2/
aim to get published in journals that are perceived to be of high impact/high quality bc of potential positive effects for grant applications, tenure, promotions etc. Funding agencies paying for publications in a list of "approved venues" (who would decide about this list?) 3/
would set strong and potentially wrong incentives to get published in these venues (p-hacking etc.).
Another proposal is that authors who published in these venues can give money to authors they cited in their own study. The idea is that authors can reward 4/
"major enablers or precursors" of the new research. It is difficult to see how this could not contribute to formation of clubs, networks and collusive behavior to keep the money inside your own research clique.
The claim that science is an industry is to some degree right, 5/
but the conclusion is not, IMO. An analogy to industry is: "You buy a car, not a document describing a car that may or may not be built, and the carmaker gets paid when it delivers the car." First, I guess in the history of car-making there had been funding for plans for cars 6/
that were not built. Second, this conflates basic and applied research, where the article seems to have a strong preference for the latter. Third, a car-buyer knows that the car meets certain standards bc of laws and regulations that are enforced (most of the time, at least) 7/
This is not where I see scientific publications (generally speaking) at the moment wrt to transparency, reproducibility (if applicable) etc. Funding allocation could be partially revised by attaching higher priority to these elements of research. 8/
It is then of secondary importance whether a single plan to build a car worked or didn't work and whether there is a car or not. If certain standards are followed and enforced, one can be confident that the result is credible and can serve as the basis for follow-up research 9/
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