funding – GOLLYGEE!

The Obama administration is calling for more access to publicly funded research. From the New York Times:

In a memorandum issued on Friday, John P. Holdren, science adviser to President Obama, called for scientific papers that report the results of federally financed research to become freely accessible within a year or so after publication. The findings are typically published in scientific journals, many of which are open only to paying subscribers.

The new policy would apply to federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture, that finance more than $100 million a year of research. The agencies have six months to submit plans for how they would carry out the new policy.

The hope is that broad access to scientific results will encourage faster progress on research and will let anyone apply the knowledge for technological advances.

The NPR points out a new trend in science – turning to the internet to raise funds for research. Scientist are starting to turn to sites like Kickstarter to look for funding for some of their projects:

People’s fascination with their inner workings may provide a new way for scientists to raise money for basic research. Just ask the folks at uBiome and American Gut.

Both are basic science projects aimed at understanding how microbiomes influence health. And in return for funding from individuals, both will provide donors with an analysis of the bacteria in their very own digestive track.

Using the Internet to crowd fund, the uBiome and American Gut projects have together raised more than $600,000.

Researchers are saying that it allows them to engage more with the public, which may lead to questions that they had never thought of.

“There’s something magical that happens with crowd funding where you start getting 500 emails from people telling you, ‘well, does it do this?’ Or, ‘what about that?’ Or, ‘why doesn’t it do that?’ And that really helps you refine what you’re doing and understand better what people’s questions and needs are,” Richman says.

More here.

GOLLYGEE!

Tag: funding

publicly funded research should be accessible to the public

crowd-funding science