Scientific funding usually treats a research paper as the main unit of achievement. This approach overlooks much of the work that makes science possible: collecting reliable data, developing research software, […]
Why Replication Should Be a Paid Scientific Profession
Scientific replication should not be treated as an occasional act of academic goodwill. It should be a paid scientific profession with dedicated funding, career paths, technical standards, and rewards tied […]
A Reputation System for Scientific Reviewers
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. […]
