When you think of a scientist, you think of a thinker. You picture a person, likely a man, possibly in a lab coat with crazy hair, if you are anything like previous studies. You may see them as a doer with a lab and experiments at the ready... but you still see that chalkboard or lab note not far away where a scientist puts their deep thoughts, pushing our understanding of the world beyond its current confines.
A scientist historically is considered someone who thinks things no one else ever has. Thoughts are understandable at that moment to a handful of people who are also thinking similar deep thoughts. The act of science is creative; it creates new understandings, new technology, and new ways to see and interact with the universe. Then, once understood, creating new ways to share this understanding to others beyond this small group.
But we have moved away from this. Science has become transactional. If you give me a grant, I will give you X units of papers, Y units of data, and Z units of new models or data analysis software. This will total $$$ dollars of new understanding for the world and allow others to leverage this for future new units of science. Some compare it to a startup, but it’s more like gig work.
We moved to this transactional form to ensure accountability. If I give you money, I want to see results. What we really are saying is that because we have limited resources, I want to make sure I am getting my money's worth. This framework and culture also say to individual researchers that I don't trust you are a good investment. I, the funder, am so limited with funds that I have to be sure any research will have an output in a measurable metric at the end of the study. But Science is about failing. Science is about looking for new things in ways that will produce results, eventually, but may not in the immediate short term. Science is a treasure hunt. The significant discoveries are often a combination of hard work, sound research, and a shit ton of luck at almost every corner. Transactional science is like living paycheck to paycheck. I need to make sure I can make rent and show I’ll be fully funded to keep my contract, so I'm going to make the investments and do the jobs that I know will result in me being able to make rent, pay bills, and put food on the table. However, the big payouts are years, if not centuries, in the future. And we no longer fund science to really go after those significant discoveries. We, the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen, have become highly risk-averse and afraid of investing in science and scientists - if we were ever willing to.
If science had always had a transactional mindset, where science has to be new and pretty sure of what will be "discovered” to be funded, we would have missed out on significant discoveries. In the past, we may not have funded projects that led to things like the confirmation that we, the Earth, are at the center of the universe, that we, the Sun, and our solar system are not at the center of the universe. In fact, until the 19th century, people tried to confirm this observation of parallax to Alpha Centauri- a nail in the coffin needed to state that we or our Sun is not the center of the universe. Thomas Henderson did one of the first, if not the first, successful observations of stellar parallax in 1832 - 1833 in Cape Town, South Africa. The missing ingredient from Aristotal's time? Better quality instrumentation. How was science funded throughout those periods? By scientists needing to be independently wealthy or knowing someone or institutions who were independently wealthy and willing to invest in them- we have missed out on amazing brains and discoveries. That does not mean that people like Thomas or Aristotle weren't brilliant and impressive, but think of all those fantastic minds who were just as if not more brilliant but who did not have access to deep pockets. I'm sure they also thought deep thoughts or tried to. However, they did not have the stage to be heard, they could not self-publish, they could not afford the equipment necessary, they were not allowed into spaces to be heard or taught, and they had many other things on their mind - like how to survive in a world which was at times literally and not just figuratively out to get them.
At this time, science was done by the independently wealthy. They could spend their time as they wished. This didn't mean that they didn't work hard. Many were dedicated to the point of obsession. Michelson of the Michelson-Morley experiment was obsessed with the idea that the universe was not a vacuum. He believed that aether permeated space and light must fly through it, meaning that if there were pockets of denser aether, like closer to the Earth where there was stronger gravitational pull than, say, on top of a mountain or out between the Earth and the Sun, the light would move more slowly. It had to go through more stuff -right? - so it would then go slower. I mean, I go slower when walking through water than through air on the sidewalk. It's the same idea, just at much faster speeds.
Michelson's experiments with light propelled our understanding. Still, he got caught trying to prove something that has yet to be found. At the moment, his thoughts on aether are incorrect, and the theory does not need it. So either we need to wait for better instrumentation and theory, or there is no such thing as aether. Does that mean that his work, his obsession, was all worthless? By all means, no! His work led to many discoveries, improvements in instrumentation, and a great career story to inspire those who find null results.
Would his work have continued to be funded today? Perhaps and perhaps not. It is noted in their history that they were not rolling in funds. Still, they did have funds from the American Association of the Advancement of Science and their institutions. He received grants from his father-in-law and found other resources. They used their connections to get equipment at or below cost.
Nowadays, such an experiment would likely not be funded - and not necessarily due to a lack of will, but a lack of institutional funds. The good ol' boy's network of getting equipment at cost is also fading. It does not help other issues within science, making it accessible and affordable to all.
And perhaps unthinkable today, when the stresses of the experiment weighed too heavily on Michelson, and his mental health started to suffer, he received a year's leave and was able to get help and have leisure and relaxing massages to help cure his symptoms of a "softening of the brain." He was burning out from all the stress, as anyone might be. He was teaching, researching, and trying to keep all of them going while constantly getting null results.
This was one experiment that two primary scientists and countless others dedicated their time to. They poured their energy, souls, and whole selves into this one experiment, this one endeavor. And while aether has not been found, their advancements and the science that were enabled because of their work are in the history books. The money, their time, and their efforts are well worth the investments made in them.
In today's world, scientists have to split their time between multiple projects. Many will try to have them align, but you can only do so much. And as your group grows, so does the number of individual and independent grants/projects you need.
This summer, I spoke to a professor who stated they needed 15 grants to keep their group funded. They were a product of success. They are doing good work and recognize that it is better to be over than underfunded. Being underfunded can mean that a student can't be paid and will need to find other jobs, a postdoc must be let go, or an engineer will leave for more sustainable pastures. All of these consequences would mean a group dwindles and is unable to focus on science. Being overfunded means you need to hire someone new... and so the problem grows. The research family expands, and so does the need for grants; thus, burnout continues and worsens.
Many, if not all, grants within Heliophysics at NASA have success rates of less than 50%, a coin flip. Many grants have success rates of 20%; some years, they drop to below 10%. I never thought of myself as a gambling person, but as a scientist, I effectively am. Most grants last three years. A single grant may cover 30% of your time - possibly much less, and there are only so many calls that your work will fit in. That means you should have about three to five proposals submitted a year, so you don't have to keep having "perfect" years every three years. If the success rate is 50%, then you should submit maybe ten grants yearly, 20%, 25 grants annually, etc. You might only be PI on some of those, but being a good Co-I still means putting work into this. When I was a young postdoc, I was told that you should dedicate a month to writing a grant... if that were true, then no one has more than a couple of months of pure research time without worrying about writing a grant - and for some, this is the reality. However, you are unlikely only to have to cover yourself - especially if you want to continue to grow as a scientist. You will have students, postdocs, engineers, contractors, and others that you will need to cover. So, while you might not need 25 grants a year just for yourself, it is likely still at least 5, if not 10, to help fund your group.
Not having funding to cover yourself or your team fully can have significant issues. Depending on your employer and visa status, if you are below 100%, 60%, or 50% covered, you may lose your retirement benefits, your health care, your job, your visa, and thus your country. This adds to the stress and insecurity that people feel.
Some in our field, like myself, have safety nets to help us endure the tough times. We can take on other jobs at our institutions or have other obligations that allow us to maintain our salary or a part of our salary even if we can not help cover our students, postdocs, engineers, people, team, and work family. Scientists are not selfish people, so the stress of being unable to cover our team is intense. Leaders in our field, leaders of groups of any size, then find that they have to focus on writing grants rather than on doing science. The thought of being unable to support this work family is devastating, leading many to take more and more time away from their actual family. Many spend countless sleepless nights creating more science units of one sort or another and writing grants to ensure that they can maintain their position as a scientist, supporting both their work and at-home families. There is little escape from the stress, and there is little support for people burning out from the stress.
There also appears to be a growing lack of trust between funders (or those who fund the funders) and the scientists. There is more and more reporting necessary when you win a grant. So now, beyond spending more and more time writing grants, scientists have to write more reports about the science metrics, the science units produced that are never seen by the research community or the public but only by those who fund the scientists.
This lack of trust wears on people just as much as the concern over funding. It distracts from the deep thinking. It wears down creative thinking because one is more concerned about having something that will produce a science unit and not necessarily good innovative science. More time is spent on marketing the results than on getting results. Thoughts become consumed around ideas of whether this activity will result in science that the funders may disagree with - that the proposal review panel may disagree with - and that the science paper referee may disagree with. Can this be sold as a science that changes the world, a science that shakes our understanding? The science that pays off in unforeseen ways takes freedom from stress, freedom from distractions, and freedom that comes from stability in ones life.
Now, life is never stress-free. Research is not stress-free. Accountability is necessary - but how we fund science and ensure progress is made needs to change, not to add needless stress. It needs to change so that more can participate in science. It needs to change so we don't burn and push people out of our field. It needs to change so scientists can get back to that deep thinking - something more like Walden's utopian world - taking care of day-to-day life so that brain power can be spent on creative endeavors instead of washing clothes or worrying about your donut consumption. And while I would love donuts and no longer have to do laundry - I would take as a starting point not having monthly or quarterly reports for a six-month or year-long project. I would take having security in knowing that I can focus on one topic area for more than three years without having to spend time on finding more funding to ensure my group can be maintained at the end of those three years (which may take at least three years given the success rates). I would take anything that lets me know that at the next conference, I'm not missing colleagues who have left the field, not because they didn't like the work, but because they left for more stable jobs.
We need a change. Change will be challenging, but there are small ways we can start.
We can ensure that grants last the length of the average Ph.D. so students and their professors don't have to worry about finding funding midway through their studies (~5 - 7 years). We can increase the size of grants so people need fewer of them to be fully funded. We can reduce the amount of required paperwork. When we publish papers, we have to report what grants went towards helping to support that research, which can be scraped off the web by the funding institution instead of having to be reported by the individuals. The same could be done for conferences, software packages, or data products. We could use different metrics than a number of papers or students for promotion and awards. All of these are doable in the short term - it just takes a brave individual to make that change. It takes people in the right positions to speak up and decide that we can have a healthier field. We need people in places of power to determine that we need to prioritize creating an environment where people can think deeply instead of having to be gig scientists... and the secret is - whoever takes those bold steps will be praised, they will be heralded as saviors of science, they will be loved by the community.
I am not that person - I am not in a role to change how we fund science. But I freely give these ideas from me and the community to those who can. But where I can, on committees and such, I hope to help us move away from at least these metrics that hurt us from being able to do that deep thinking. I hope you do, too.