Crowdfunding science

Crowdfunding scientific research. This is a crazy idea to people who know how research funding normally works. Large grants are given to researchers who are associated with established universities, research institutions or government departments. Researchers need to prove to funding agencies that their grant proposals are worthy. Popular projects, established projects and projects that align with funding agencies' goals and agendas are more likely to be funded than those that carry higher risks of failure or are more experimental (incredibly). Those scientists who don't want to participate in this funding process need to fund themselves through personal money or a business; the current explosion of scientific start-ups speaks to the popularity of this path.

In addition to putting increasing pressure on traditional scientific research (see this recent NYT article for a related issue), the current system places the power of funding in the hands of a few. Now, for some projects, the power of funding can be placed in the hands of the many. Some new major scientific crowdfunding websites are up and running, including the ones featured here, PetriDish.org and Microryza.com. They are slick and colorful and mirror the structure of Kickstarter's crowdfunding site. Researchers prepare proposals and provide the dollar amount required to carry out their projects. Those scientists who meet their funding goals by the deadline have their research projects funded.

The parallels to Kickstarter are obvious, making these sites at first seem unoriginal, but the parallels help to make crowdfunded science accessible because people who are familiar with Kickstarter know exactly how it works. Secure payment systems, regular project updates. The companies are for-profit institutions, and they take a transaction fee from each funded project. One significant difference between the two sites is that PetriDish, like Kickstarter, has tangible rewards for different levels of backing (including videos, photographs and T-shirts), while Microryza specifically does not offer tangible rewards. Maybe because of the tangible reward requirement at PetriDish, this site is attracting more visually impactful projects (animals, ecology, geology etc.), while Microryza has a wider range of scientific projects, including computational projects where there's not much to see or print on a poster.

The research projects that are seeking crowdfunding are relatively small in scope, with researchers requesting in the range of $1,000-14,000. This is also a departure from the traditional system of research funding in that small projects are often not considered by major funding agencies unless they are bundled as part of a much larger grant proposal.

I have no personal affiliation with either site, but I am interested in seeing how both of them move forward. I've donated to several Kickstarter campaigns in the past year, and I'll be keeping a close eye on these scientific projects to find some that I'd like to support.

A brief search brought up other science crowdfunding sites to check out: sciflies.org, myprojects.cancerresearchuk.org (cancer-specific projects), and scifundchallenge. It will be interesting to see if one or two crowdfunding sites pulls ahead and becomes dominant in this niche or if the sites will become specialized to avoid competing with each other for projects and donations.

ARPA-E is not your average ARPA

DARPA is the well-known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. It conducts top-secret defense research projects, like X, Y and Z. The "advanced research projects" model seems to be working because the government recently launched another Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E. The E is for energy. It's probably not as stealthy as DARPA, but it's potentially much more important.

ARPA-E operates under the Department of Energy and is responsible for funding research projects that aim to improve our use of energy resources or develop new energy resources. Some of the funded projects are or will be very experimental, not falling in line with previous or even current energy research. All of this funding and research will help us to reduce or eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.... hopefully.

ARPA-E states that it funds research projects in six major categories of energy technology advancement, plus one category of "other projects." They give their major categories catchy names, which I guess the goal is to help people to remember them better:

BEEST (better batteries)
IMPACCT (reduced carbon dioxide emissions)
GRIDS (grid-scale energy storage)
ADEPT (soft magnetics, high-voltage switches, high-density charge storage)
Electrofuels (microorganism-based biofuel production)
BEETIT (energy-efficient building cooling technology)
Other Projects

It seems that the research programs that are funded by ARPA-E are lines of research that are proposed or maybe already underway at universities, research institutions and private companies. I think in a way, it's good to have these major funding categories to help focus research efforts to accelerate innovation and progress. It might also encourage collaboration among the different groups that are working in the same area of research. I think, though, that the "other projects" category will become ever larger, possibly overtaking all of the other categories in number. ARPA-E will probably need to expand its core research categories as projects in the "other projects" category are funded.

My personal favorite is the Electrofuels category because it acknowledges that people with my basic science training in yeast (the best model organism, but sometimes difficult to translate into real-world applications) have an important role to play in improving our energy outlook.