"Conditions that are
attached to government funding can affect the purposes and values
upheld, especially when those conditions
require academic-industrial
partnerships for research to be eligible for funding, as in the case
of the Canadian government's C $300 -- million investment in a
series of genomics research centres (Genome Canada). Structuring
funding in this way leaves out the funding of research that will not
result in marketable products, and excludes those researchers who
undertake it."
(2002; Nature Reviews
1, 316-320) |
Somerville
's point was also independently made in letters to the Globe
and Mail of
Toronto
by Donald Forsdyke (May 5, 2001) and by John Polanyi (July 7, 2005). The
latter wrote:
"Requirement
for matching funds applies to virtually every new source of
research money over the past decade, federal or provincial. --
The effect is to restrict research to research with a
predictable outcome. This
is not a good way to select science. -- We can pick the wrong
people.
--The
administrators would, one may be sure, yield to none in their
commitment to excellence. They merely reserved the right to
select from among the best those who, in their judgement, are
the most relevant. But
these may not be the best. So Canada prepares to scale Olympus's
highest peaks, having selected climbers without giving first
place to mountaineering ability. -- It is like picking a Glenn
Gould on the basis of appearance at the keyboard.
--
In our zeal to protect the tax-payers' investment, we're in
danger of squandering it. --
| What
is excellent -- is a revelation. It is precisely
because it surprises us that it is resistant to being
planned." |
|
On
June 24th 2005
Science
published a
letter from 40 of "Canada's most distinguished scientists,"
criticizing the government's matching funds policy. Commenting on
this, Polanyi remarked: "To find 40 scientists willing to challenge
authority is -- a surprise. Canadian science is coming of age."
|
Of
course, to make his point, Polanyi did not make clear that
those of the highest ability (be it at mountain-climbing,
keyboard, or research) are able to plan and
predict outcomes that, to the rest of us (and certainly to
fund-allocation committees), appear as
"revelations." We would never have thought of these
outcomes (because, like it or not, we are of modest ability).
Thus to us the outcomes would appear "resistant to being
planned." In this way, subtle ideas lose out to the unsubtle,
and subtle researchers lose out to the unsubtle, whose
consequent rapid
career advance can lead them to key positions in
fund-allocation committees. |
|
