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Editorial

Research Funding: the Case for a Modified Lottery

Ferric C. Fang, Arturo Casadevall
Ferric C. Fang
Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Microbiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA
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Arturo Casadevall
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
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DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00422-16
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This article has a correction. Please see:

  • Erratum for Fang and Casadevall, Research Funding: the Case for a Modified Lottery - May 17, 2016

ABSTRACT

The time-honored mechanism of allocating funds based on ranking of proposals by scientific peer review is no longer effective, because review panels cannot accurately stratify proposals to identify the most meritorious ones. Bias has a major influence on funding decisions, and the impact of reviewer bias is magnified by low funding paylines. Despite more than a decade of funding crisis, there has been no fundamental reform in the mechanism for funding research. This essay explores the idea of awarding research funds on the basis of a modified lottery in which peer review is used to identify the most meritorious proposals, from which funded applications are selected by lottery. We suggest that a modified lottery for research fund allocation would have many advantages over the current system, including reducing bias and improving grantee diversity with regard to seniority, race, and gender.

The views expressed in this Editorial do not necessarily reflect the views of this journal or of ASM.

  • Copyright © 2016 Fang and Casadevall.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

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Research Funding: the Case for a Modified Lottery
Ferric C. Fang, Arturo Casadevall
mBio Apr 2016, 7 (2) e00422-16; DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00422-16

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Research Funding: the Case for a Modified Lottery
Ferric C. Fang, Arturo Casadevall
mBio Apr 2016, 7 (2) e00422-16; DOI: 10.1128/mBio.00422-16
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  • Article
    • ABSTRACT
    • EDITORIAL
    • BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH FUNDING ALLOCATION IN THE UNITED STATES
    • SHORTCOMINGS OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM
    • PROPOSALS FOR REFORM
    • LESSONS FROM THE WORLD OF FINANCE
    • GOALS OF A FUNDING ALLOCATION SYSTEM
    • POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF A FUNDING LOTTERY
    • CONCLUDING REMARKS
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    • REFERENCES
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