As science money is increasingly awarded to a small number of expensive projects, some academics argue that a new funding system is needed

Big science costs big money. The 100,000 Genomes Project will burn through £300m by the time researchers sequence the genetic blueprint of that many humans. Finding the Higgs Boson is estimated to have cost as much as £8bn. The newly approved European Spallation Source initiative is budgeted at €1.843bn – for now.



But is this type of mega project worth the price tag? Is it worth the opportunity cost of failing to fund other scientific ideas that will never be explored as a result? And how can big science researchers really prove that their work is worthwhile when the cost is so high, the timescales so long and the outcomes so uncertain?

At Bangor University, Jo Rycroft-Malone, professor of health services research believes that although impact from big science investments may be hard to predict, “big science scientists should be challenged to better argue the case for the impact and benefits”.



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Some academics take a harder line. Bill Amos, professor of evolutionary genetics at Cambridge University doesn’t believe the outcomes of big science projects have so far been worth the “grotesque” sums invested, and says that funding bodies are far too impressed by “grandiose projects”.

“Take the 100,000 Genome Project. It’s a fabulous waste of money because it is hypothesis free – they’re not testing something,” he says.

Research councils, Amos says, often back big science out of ignorance. “Somebody who has a big research programme will pour out research papers and their CV looks so strong that when they make an application for funding they can’t be refused. But if you divide the number of papers published by the huge number of researchers involved, then [these big projects] are terrible value.”

Funding application forms now require scientists to fill in sections called “pathways to impact”, and about these, Amos is unremittingly scathing. “Anyone who understands science can see what rubbish this is. Basically, it says ‘speculate on how this is going to change the world’ and it’s completely unprovable, so it’s a charter to support bullshitters. If I speak to scientists I really respect, they are exactly the sort of people who if you ask them to fill out two pages speculating on their impact, well, they just want to get on with their research. They won’t do it.”

Big science: skewing research agendas?



Ryecraft-Malone points out that big science doesn’t just suck up vast amounts of money – it also risks skewing research agendas. Because projects are funded mostly by wealthy countries, these projects may be more likely to be geared towards the needs of the developed world.

The smaller the total pot, the more desperate people get, and so the more money they ask for Bill Amos, professor of evolutionary genetics, Cambridge University

At Ulster University, Dr Kevin Curran, group leader for the ambient intelligence research group acknowledges that large projects do hive off resources from greater numbers of smaller projects. But he says that the potential impact can be worth the gamble.



Researchers, Curran believes, could increase their impact by working with industry. “Interacting with industry allows researchers to become exposed to real world needs,” he says. “[This] allows academics to work on real world problems rather than theoretical or presumed problems.”



Assessing the value of big science funding is clearly going to be easier in some situations than in others. “An obvious case would be an invention which leads to a spinout company which leads to employment,” says Curran. “Measuring the impact on the economy can be done quite easily though sales and income tax etc, and then subtracting the funding to see ‘profit’ to government.”



It is however far harder to measure the value for money of a computer algorithm that’s released on open source license and incorporated into various products over many years. “The issue is that it can take a long time for the advances in knowledge to percolate into everyday life, and thus sometimes the general public don’t feel that the investment is paying off,” says professor John MacIntyre, dean of the faculty of applied sciences at Sunderland University.



“I think the key issue is whether the projects are appropriately defined to have a chance of solving the problems they are working on.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The 100,000 Genomes Project will burn through £300m by the time researchers sequence the genetic blueprint of that many humans.’ Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy

Elaborating on his argument about waste, however, Amos points to the untold millions that have been spent on huge research projects worldwide to find a cure for cancer. There is, he points out drily, no cure yet. By contrast, he tells a story about how a single thoughtful researcher exploring an idea can discover something that may prove to be of untold value to humanity.

“We’re desperate to find new antibiotics,” he observes. “And there’s someone in my department who’s researching burying beetles. When these beetles find a corpse, they shave it, roll it into a ball, cover it in saliva which is full of antibiotics that keep it fresh, and lay their eggs on it. That researcher isn’t looking for antibiotics, they’re doing something on parental care, but they asked themselves the question, ‘why is this corpse not rotting?’ And if you only ever fund big projects you’re going to bypass all this kind of natural history and biology research.”

Big research funding programmes can become too unwieldy to function well

Ryecraft-Malone says that “big science funding should focus on a balanced portfolio of investment between science oriented and solution oriented programmes.” This, however, requires an overarching framework in which big science would have to operate – including paying attention to how scientific research agendas are shaped, clarity about government motivations for funding big science, and careful evaluation over time. “As far as I’m aware, such a framework does not exist.”

Meanwhile, the focus on international big science projects creates an unhealthy dynamic for researchers, believes Amos. “The smaller the total pot the more desperate people get so the more they ask for, raising the average size of grants and resulting in fewer grants and more desperation,” he says. “Small amounts doled out widely would allow many to chug along nicely, reduce the numbers of applications and encourage much greater frugality. People who get awarded lots often spend much more than they need. Value for money again suffers.”



A different problem is also becoming apparent: big research funding programmes can become too unwieldy to function well. “I think the Horizon 2020 programme is trying to identify opportunities for impact – economic impact, social impact, and even cultural impact – but there are significant problems in how the European research programmes are managed and controlled,” MacIntyre says.



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“In particular, they have become hugely bureaucratic: the scientific community is worried at the long lead times needed to construct partnerships and bids, and the very low success rates in some areas of the programme. If it takes a year or more to put a consortium of European research partners together to work on a bid for a project, and the success rate is only one in 42 bids, then potentially a researcher could work through their whole career and only see one project funded. As a result, many researchers are turning away from the European programmes and looking elsewhere to get support for their work.”

For an alternative model, Amos points across the Atlantic. “The Canadian system is based on giving those who are productive enough money to carry on,” he says.



“This is hugely efficient – no spending a third of your time writing grant applications, most of which fail, no need to ask for far more than you need because you never know if that will be your last bit of funding, no spending hours reviewing grant applications and no politics and schmoozing to butter up committees so that you get awarded grants you may not deserve.”

Rycroft-Malone wonders whether in fact the wrong people are divvying up the cash. With resources so precious, she says, “perhaps it’s time to open up the debate to the public about what scientific agendas we should be pursuing and how they should be resourced. This could help move away from a trend where our governments are buying into ‘vanity projects’, and would have the potential to hold them more to account.”

This article was amended on 16 June to correct the estimated budget of the European Spallation Source initiative. This has been changed from €1,843bn to €1.843bn.



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