Avoiding rejection of high-quality grant proposals
Philip Strange of the School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, UK, writes in Nature's Correspondence (Nature 454, 397; 2008):
In his Correspondence 'Fewer academics could be the answer to insufficient grants' (Nature 453, 978; 2008), Andrew Doig suggests that the endemic problem of the rejection of high-quality grant proposals could be solved by cutting the number of academic staff. This proposal could create a new problem.
The number of academic staff is generally related to the number of undergraduates. Cutting the number of academics would reduce the number of trained students produced, which would have a negative effect on the nation's health and wealth.
In this increasingly technological age, we need all the trained scientists we can muster to combat issues such as global warming. The way to prevent the rejection of high-quality grant proposals and to support research is to put a bit more money into the system.
