Thinking about it some more, I think all the materials (patentable IP
or trade secrets, which in the US are IP and under Defense of Trade
Secrets Act) of a researcher are owned by the university. So just
getting across tech transfer/IP of individual univs would be a massive
hurdle before thinking of being able to upload grants proposals for
sharing.
And funding agencies would first also have to negotiate (and convince)
with all univs to allow it, even if somehow taxpayers and funding
agencies could be first convinced about the need or value in doing
this. In fact, in that scenario, there would actually be no need for a
new system to share proposals. All funding agencies just have to open
up a portal to access submitted grants (and I'm quite sure the
agencies already have massive security around hacking attempts to
access all this material).
Cheers,
Debanu
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 11:58 AM Debanu Das <debanu....@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear John,
For sure it is an aspiration as a society and as a civilization:
to think beyond individual nations. And for that we have some
examples as you mentioned at the scientific (IUCr, PDB) and
political level (UN). We also have the EU, ASEAN, NATO, etc.
However, despite having these organizations, I think even within
most of them, for critical strategic information that dictates
competitiveness and preparation, sharing is restricted to within
the group (at least for the political ones). For that matter, even
individual agencies within countries often have restrictions in
data and materials sharing.
I think if we solve the issue of national competitiveness, social
inequality, etc first, we will not even have to discuss if there
could be issues openly and globally sharing grant proposals. I
guess the counter proposal could be made that maybe more sharing
of more information will eventually lead to equity everywhere
(which to some extent is reflected in the open sharing of
publications).
But for now, I think there are practicality hurdles to cross on
these, which is why I mentioned "workable" in my initial response.
Just in the last few years, we have seen examples of more and more
focus on IP theft, computer hacking to steal research data from
organizations and companies, more focus on ensuring
confidentiality of the peer review process, and computer security
to avoid leaks of material, and so on.
Not trying to be cynical here, I think it is great for us as a
community to always have an eye on a larger and nobler purpose
while working within current practicalities and frameworks.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Debanu
On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 11:18 AM John R Helliwell
<jrhelliw...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Debanu,
There is indeed much at stake here.
Would I do it now, share my proposals, No.
Would I do it if funders’ rules required it. Yes.
When might funders’ rules require it eg when Tax payers insist
that the priority is achieving societal goals asap. Might that
happen in the foreseeable future? I don’t think so because we
are as scientists good at thinking so far out of the box, such
as the internet, or from the 19the century electricity and
magnetism, the tax payer sees the benefit of an individual’s
curiosity driven research.
The bigger point is can we also think beyond individual nations?
We know we can: the UN, International Council for Science, IUCr……
So, it probably isn’t a one size fits all idea that James has
put forward…
Best wishes,
John
Emeritus Professor John R Helliwell DSc
On 27 Jun 2022, at 19:03, Debanu Das <debanu....@gmail.com>
wrote:
>So, 2nd question is: would you do it? Would you upload your
application
>into the public domain for all to see? What about the
reviewer comments?
>If not, why not? Afraid people will steal your ideas? Well,
once
>something is public, its pretty clear who got the idea first.
I do not think this ("upload your application into the public
domain for all to see") is a workable or desirable idea for a
variety of reasons. There are far greater issues that just
about getting credit for your ideas. Which is somewhat of an
academic and personal pursuit.
For one, the entire R&D paradigm and programs and IP of
entire nations (which seems primarily would be the US and
potentially some EU countries under this case who if at all
choose to sign up for this), universities, companies
(business grants) and funding agencies will wreak havoc
(~30-40% of US GDP). We already know there is a lopsided
distribution of which countries taxpayers are funding major
IP & innovation. So there are major economic, political,
social and national competitiveness aspects at stake. I doubt
that even NSF, DoD, DOE, NIH/HHS or any other government
funding agency will support such initiatives. Transparency
and openness in publishing research is a different ball game,
even though there too there are lopsided effects at the end
in many cases, but overall good for world progress, hopefully.
Best,
Debanu
On Wed, Jun 22, 2022 at 6:09 PM James Holton
<jmhol...@lbl.gov> wrote:
Greetings all,
I'd like to ask a question that I expect might generate
some spirited
discussion.
We have seen recently a groundswell of support for
openness and
transparency in peer review. Not only are pre-prints
popular, but we are
also seeing reviewer comments getting published along
with the papers
themselves. Sometimes even signed by the reviewers, who
would have
traditionally remained anonymous.
My question is: why don't we also do this for grant
proposals?
I know this is not the norm. However, after thinking
about it, why
wouldn't we want the process of how funding is awarded in
science to be
at least as transparent as the process of publishing the
results? Not
that the current process isn't transparent, but it could
be more so.
What if applications, and their reviewer comments, were
made public?
Perhaps after an embargo period? There could be great
benefits here.
New investigators especially, would have a much clearer
picture of
format, audience, context and convention. I expect
unsuccessful
applications might be even more valuable than successful
ones. And yet,
in reality, those old proposals and especially the
comments almost never
see the light of day. Monumental amounts of work goes
into them, on both
sides, but then get tucked away into the darkest corners
of our hard drives.
So, 2nd question is: would you do it? Would you upload
your application
into the public domain for all to see? What about the
reviewer comments?
If not, why not? Afraid people will steal your ideas?
Well, once
something is public, its pretty clear who got the idea first.
3rd question: what if the service were semi-private? and
you got to get
comments on your proposal before submitting it to your
funding agency?
Would that be helpful? What if in exchange for that
service you had to
review 2-3 other applications? Would that be worth it?
Or, perhaps, I'm being far too naiive about all this. For
all I know
there are some rules against doing this I'm not aware
of. Either way,
I'm interested in what this community thinks. Please
share your views!
On- or off-list is fine.
-James Holton
MAD Scientist
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