New Legislation: Grant Funding Criteria Challenging Fundamentally How We Do Science

Various sources have accused Congress, namely Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), of trying to dismantle and/or replace peer review at the National Science Foundation with a set of guidelines chosen by Congress.  After reviewing the discussion draft of the bill, I have found this to be partially inaccurate but still serious and worthy of the attention from the scientific community. 

While the draft does not mention removing or replacing peer review (which would be unreasonable considering the members are not paid), it does set three major criteria that the NSF would have to adhere to in order to award funding for grants:

1)      “…in the interests of the United States to advance the national health, prosperity, or welfare, and to secure the national defense by promoting the progress of science;

2)      “…the finest quality, is groundbreaking, and answers questions or solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large; and

3)      “…not duplicative of other research projects being funded by the Foundation or other Federal science agencies.

Quite honestly, the first two requirements would not severely impact the science community considering NSF’s current guidelines ask reviewers to consider the “intellectual merit” of a proposed research project as well as its “broader impacts” on the scientific community and society.  It is already understood in the research community that grant-winning proposal is one littered with catchwords like “cancer”, “Alzheimer’s” or “national defense.” 

What is important, however, is the third criteria deeming duplicative research projects as being unworthy of federal funding.  At this stage, the proposed bill becomes an attack on (I’m sorry Dr. E) the scientific method.  The basic premises of scientific research are accuracy and precision meaning results must be valid and reproducible. 

A perfect example of why this is important can be seen in the article Nancy just posted on this blog about the study disproving XMRV as being the cause of CFS.  Prior studies showed a correlation and despite the inability of clinical data to support or reproduce the association, funding continued to be allocated toward chasing after this red herring.  Finally, the extensive (and duplicative) study funded by the National Institute of Health published in mBio invalidated the previously asserted association.

These new guidelines would encourage science to forge ahead in such situations because it would be seen as progress simply because it would be different and a supposed step forward from the original research.  The study disproving the results would never have received funding. 

All of this “to make sure that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly” as Smith said in a recent statement. Ironically, however, it would be this incessant drive to move forward without looking back that would waste taxpayer’s money on perpetually unfounded research.  I agree that progress is important but even more important is that this progress is in the right direction.
 

 

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/HQRA13_001_xml.pdf

http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/merit_review/phase2.jsp

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/lamar-smith-science-peer-review_n_3189107.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/04/us-lawmaker-proposes-new-criteri-1.html

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/04/obama-promises-to-protect-peer-r.html