Crowdfunding science

Dollars and sense There is an ongoing debate, and data investigation, into the uneven distribution of grant dollars and the impact it has. A study of the scientific impact of research funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), focusing on individual researchers from three fields, concluded that impact per dollar generally decreased with increasing grant size [2]. Similarly, a study of funding allocated by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) from the National Institutes of Health reported that past $700,000 in annual direct cost to the investigator per year, productivity plateaus [3]. Productivity was measured using a combination of publications and citations in both articles. Funding rates across agencies are historically low, and these studies show that exceedingly large grants are inefficient. Large grants, though perhaps not exceedingly large grants, will continue to be needed to fund many areas of research, especially including support for personnel. In contrast, crowdfunding has the potential to support small projects effectively. Crowdfunding is not a replacement or even a competition to typical funding mechanisms, but a complement. Most crowdfunding is quite small, with a median of $3500 funded per project on one platform, Experiment.com [4]. The scale and scope of research questions that can be asked with crowdfunding are different from larger funded projects, but then, I would argue the audience is also different. When I decided to run a crowdfunding campaign to fund our work, I was an early career researcher, I had not been awarded funding from any major funding body, and we had been denied multiple times. For our project, I also had funding for personnel, and had collected samples, but needed funding for particular components of the research. The project was primed for crowdfunding. However, in the same way as there is a lot to learn that can help in crafting better grant proposals, there are many things to learn and prepare for when embarking on crowdfunding, and a lot of advice out there [5].