Scientific review depends not only on the quality of submitted research, but also on the reliability of the people evaluating it. A reviewer may be knowledgeable, careless, unusually strict, biased […]
Who Should Pay Peer Reviewers—and for What Exactly?
Peer reviewers should be paid by the parties that benefit from credible scientific evaluation: publishers, research funders, universities, scientific platforms, and donors. However, reviewers should not be paid merely for […]
Can Failed Experiments Be Valuable Public Goods? Funding Negative Results to Stop Science Repeating the Same Mistakes
Yes—failed experiments can be valuable public goods. A rigorous experiment that disproves a hypothesis, identifies an ineffective method, or documents the limits of an intervention gives other researchers information they […]
Why Funding Agencies Should Explain Every Rejection—and How AIIM Already Does This
Scientific funding agencies should provide a meaningful explanation for every rejected application. A rejection should identify the decisive reasons, the evidence or criteria behind them, and whether the problem concerns […]
Continuous Funding: What If Scientists Were Paid After Every Useful Result?
Scientists are usually funded in large, infrequent decisions. A researcher writes a proposal, waits through peer review, and—if selected—receives enough money for a project lasting several years. Once the grant […]
Why Small Scientific Contributions Deserve Small but Automatic Rewards
Science does not advance only through major discoveries. It also advances through thousands of modest contributions: correcting an equation, documenting software, cleaning a dataset, checking a proof, reporting a failed […]
Should Some Research Grants Be Allocated by Lottery?
Yes, some research grants should be allocated by lottery—but only after proposals pass meaningful eligibility, quality, ethics, and feasibility checks. A research funding lottery should not treat a rigorous project […]
How Prediction-Free Research Funding Could Support Unexpected Discoveries
Scientific discovery is inherently uncertain. Researchers can define a question, choose rigorous methods, and explain why an investigation matters—but they cannot reliably predict what nature, mathematics, or experimentation will reveal. […]
Why Scientific Funding Needs a Portfolio, Not a Single Winner
`Scientific funding should not attempt to identify one certain winner. It should construct a diversified portfolio of plausible discoveries, accept that some projects will fail, and expand support when evidence […]
Why Research Funding Should Follow Results, Not Promises
Most research funding is distributed before the funded work exists. Scientists submit proposals describing what they expect to discover, how they plan to proceed, and why their future work deserves […]