The regulation of scientific work

Abstract

Government research councils, national science foundations and the like have become ubiquitous. The first one seems to have been the US National Science Foundation (NSF), created in 1950; the similarly named organization with an equivalent function in Switzerland was established in 1952; the UK Science Research Council was formed in 1965; and so forth. The mode of operation of these organizations was to issue “calls for proposals” (i.e., general invitations to scientists to submit project proposals) and then disburse funds according to an assessment of proposals received. The main effect seems to have been a general stifling of innovative ideas, since the final decisions whether to fund a given project are made by a committee, which, almost axiomatically, favours the most conservative ideas.