Tag Archives: funding

A New Era of Science Funding – Part 4: Speaking up in support of federally funded research

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Over the years science funding has changed significantly. In the past, funding would have been obtained through private benefaction or from wealthy individuals. Today, researchers are usually funded by a mixture of grants from government agencies, non-profit foundations and institutions. However, with the increasing popularity of social media and the internet, methods used to obtain money may be undergoing a shift. New routes linking funding sources with scientists are being increasingly explored. Tighter budgets and struggling economies are driving a need for new ways of funding and social media is proving to be invaluable in raising awareness of projects and linking like-minded people more effectively.

In this special Soapbox Science series, we focus on the new ways in which science groups and individuals are obtaining funding and how projects such as Petridish, Tekla Labs, Kickstarter and the #scifundchallenge may change the future of scientific research.

Dr. Thon holds joint appointments within the hematology division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and is an American Society of Hematology Scholar. Dr. Thon received his doctorate from the University of British Columbia, Canada, under Dr. Dana Devine where he worked closely with Canadian Blood Services for the improvement of the processing and storage of blood platelets. As a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Joseph Italiano’s lab, Dr. Thon’s research now focuses on the cytoskeletal mechanics and signaling pathways leading to platelet formation. This research has set the groundwork for the development of biological model systems that will be used to (1) study the process of platelet release under physiologically relevant conditions, (2) develop bio-mimetic systems to generate useable numbers of clinically viable platelets for infusion, and (3) establish representative ex vivo models of human bone marrow and surrounding blood vessels to test drugs and develop treatments for thrombocytopenia.

The day-to-day rigors of academic biomedical research are difficult to appreciate, and it is necessary that scientists share their perspective of the knowledge market with politicians and government representatives who are burdened with making difficult decisions on our behalf. Unlike the airline industry which also does research and development (R&D) to create safer, lighter and more efficient airplanes, academic medicine does not build R&D into the pricing of its services. This is because biomedical research is a surprisingly random process which depends on chance observations, unexpected results and seemingly unrelated outcomes. As a result, downstream applications of research are almost impossible to predict at the outset and necessitate an altogether different model of cost recovery. To subsidize national biomedical research endeavors, projected costs are spread among citizens in the form of taxes, and distributed to multiple academic institutes as operating grants. Investments in research lead to licensed technologies which create jobs and revenues far in excess of the grants that support them, with every dollar invested in academic biomedical research generating two dollars in economic growth (Murphy K., Topel, R. The economic value of medical research, 1999).

A country’s biomedical advancement and innovation is thus tied to its investment in academic research. Funding of research comes entirely from government and private donors, and is as value-based, bottom-up and pork- and crony-free as it gets. In North America approximately two-thirds of academic biomedical research is supported through federal funding agencies such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR). The mainstays of NIH/CIHR support are grants made to individual investigators for reasonably broad research projects, and researchers compete for these funds through a rigorous process of peer review. Nevertheless, the lack of sustained growth for both the NIH and CIHR has forced success rates for primary operating grants to drop significantly over the last decade to approximately 12% (NIH, R01) and 15% (CIHR Operating Grant); Fiscal Year 2011. This means that only a very small percentage of outstanding applications for research projects are being actively supported to tackle the multitude of health needs in these countries. As a result, a majority of highly-rated research proposals will not be funded, opening the field for countries like Germany, India and China which are boasting funding rates of 47% and higher to take the lead.

Relatively flat funding rates in North America have meant that universities, hospitals and research institutes have been forced to implement hiring freezes of PhDs into faculty positions, effectively stranding their scientists in temporary, low-paying jobs with limited prospects of advancement. Not only does this risk exporting our scientists abroad, but private industry’s reliance on biomedical research, both in terms of scientific innovation and the researchers they help train, means industry will follow suit. Canadians call this the ‘brain drain.’

Indeed, 80% of PhDs in North America will not become professors (Fuhrmann et al., Improving graduate education to support a branching career pipeline: Recommendations based on a survey of doctoral students in the basic biomedical sciences, 2011). For the majority of these scientific investigators, the inability to secure a faculty position has meant that they must languish in a series of post-doctoral positions supported by grant-funded professors who are finding themselves increasingly with limited resources. The average age of independence in research is now in the mid-40s, a testament to the bleak prospects facing young scientists. Given the state of academic funding, it is not surprising that many investigators have chosen to transition into more secure professions like teaching, medicine or law. The loss hurts our competitiveness in biomedical research and forces industry abroad.

Given our current economy, it is imperative that efforts to improve the nation’s fiscal stability be grounded in the long-term competitiveness of industries we currently head, and that we leverage our expertise in medical science and capacity to do high-tech research. This does not need to come from increased government spending alone. Whereas academic medicine cannot build R&D into the pricing of its services, universities profit directly from tuition fees, patents and personal endowments. Since these revenues are derived from faculty teaching loads, the scientific success of their investigators, and established reputation of their research program, faculty support must be factored into departmental operating budgets. For American institutions, the Canadian system represents a more sustainable model in this regard, and universities on both sides of the border should be required to assume greater responsibility for investigator salaries and administrative support, freeing up tax dollars to directly support research innovation. Likewise, tax breaks for private donations to federal funding agencies would reduce their dependence on tax-payer dollars and incentivize industry investment in national research programs. Finally, limiting the number of federal awards issued per investigator (most of which are held by senior faculty) would open up more funding opportunities to help support young investigators and significantly lower the age of independence.

Science is a marathon, and if we fall behind now, while we lead health innovation in the world, the cost of recovering our position, in light of emerging economies with which we compete, will become progressively more expensive. Sustained increases in NIH/CIHR funding are critical to maintain North America’s innovation engines at a crucial time for research and the economy, and most importantly, improve the health and well-being of our nations. Now is the time for scientists to advocate most strongly for national investment in biomedical research. Senators, congressmen, and members of parliament are the decision-makers you elect to represent you – write to them. You can go here and enter your zip code (in the United States), or here and enter your postal code (in Canada), to access your representative.

While the argument for the government to prioritize an industry where the number of clinical advances, drug developments and cures is proportional to total research investment is not a difficult case to make – make it. Addressing these concerns forces the issue to light, and commits politicians to publicly defensible positions for which they can subsequently be held accountable. Government agencies cannot lobby for themselves and policy makers do not share your unique perspective. Our health, economy, and the future of scientific progress are at stake.

To find out more about science funding you can read this special Nature News feature,  Finding philanthropy: Like it? Pay for it.

A New Era of Science Funding – Part 3: Crowdfunding via Petridish

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Over the years science funding has changed significantly. In the past, funding would have been obtained through private benefaction from wealthy individuals. Today, researchers are usually funded by a mixture of grants from government agencies, non-profit foundations and institutions. However, with the increasing popularity of social media and the internet, methods used to obtain money may be undergoing a shift. New routes linking funding sources with scientists are being increasingly explored. Tighter budgets and struggling economies are driving a need for new ways of funding and social media is proving to be invaluable in raising awareness of projects and linking like-minded people more effectively.

In this special Soapbox Science series, we focus on the new ways in which science groups and individuals are obtaining funding and how projects such as Tekla Labs, Kickstarter and the #scifundchallenge may change the future of scientific research.

In this post we will hear from three different groups who are using a new website, Petridish.org, to help fund their research. 

Geoff Gallice grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, where he spent every available minute searching nearby fields and small forest patches for insects. At the University of Maryland, he quickly chose biology as his major and since making his first trip to the tropics during his third year, he has been unequivocally devoted to tropical ecology and conservation. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Florida’s McGuire Center.

After watching a documentary about the Amazon when I was child, I wanted desperately to visit. I finally got my chance just a few years ago, and the rainforest that I encountered both met and exceeded all of my expectations – I decided right then and there, without vacillation, that I would study tropical biology. Today, I am a graduate student at the University of Florida’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, a leading center for tropical Lepidoptera research. I’m interested primarily in the large scale relationship between species abundance and distribution, as well as its underlying causes, using Neotropical butterflies as a model system.

A clearwing butterfly, Ithomia salapia, from Moyobamba, Peru

I’m planning a trip to Peru beginning in late 2012, where I will gather butterfly abundance and other ecological information to test this relationship, as well as potential underlying causes, including breadth of host-plant use. I’ve prepared thoroughly for the trip, first by conducting a similar brief project in Ecuador for my Master’s, and currently by teaching myself everything I can about ithomiine host-plants. I feel very well-equipped to see the project through – the only gaping hole in my plan at this moment is funding, and securing the relatively small amount of cash that I need to conduct my field study in Peru has indeed been a struggle.

Peruvian rainforest, Cordillera Escalera, near Tarapoto

Apart from a few comparatively well-studied groups, even the basic biology of nearly every species of tropical plant and animal remains almost completely unknown. Certainly a large number of causes are to blame for this situation, but two in particular stand out. First, most of the world’s biologists are trained, and therefore conduct research close to home in the temperate regions of Western Europe and North America. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there is an abysmal lack of funding for research in the tropics. But a ground-breaking new website, Petridish.org, aims to change that. The folks at Petridish recently launched their first round of projects and anyone is free to donate to a project that they wish to see completed.

This crowdfunding approach accomplishes two things simultaneously. It helps scientists raise funds by tapping a previously neglected resource, the interested public, while engaging said public in science from its incipient stage. Given both the scarcity of science funding and an alarming disconnect between science and the general public, the application of crowdfunding to science is a welcomed new approach. I’m excited to be part of the initial launch of Petridish.org, and not just because I envision a real chance to raise the funds needed for my research. I simply love the crowdfunding model and I hope to see Petridish usher in a new era of funding for tropical biology, and indeed science in general.

Credit: Marcelo Rotundo.

Morgan Gustison is a doctoral graduate student in the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. She is a member of the University of Michigan Gelada Research Project, a team of researchers who have studied the behavior and biology of Ethiopian gelada monkeys in the Simien Mountains since 2005. Morgan studies the complexity of gelada monkey vocal communication.

There are two common questions I get when telling my friends, family and new acquaintances about what I do for a living. The first is, “Wait… why would you willingly go back to school for 5-7 years in order to study monkey behavior?” The second is, “Do you actually get paid for that?”

“Wait… why would you willingly go back to school for 5-7 years in order to study monkey behavior?”

It’s always fun to answer the first question – I start by reliving some of my experiences as a cage-cleaner at the  Wisconsin Primate Research Center. At first, the rhesus macaques gave me lots of dirty looks, just as they would any newbie. After working there for several months, however, I began noticing a shift in their behavior – they started grooming each other. One monkey would sprawl out like a dog wanting a belly scratch and its partner would furiously weave through his or her hair to find items that only they can see. This affiliative social behavior was endearing and their trust in one another eerily ‘human-like’. I wondered whether primate behavior was like this in the wild. So, I sought out a series of experiences to learn more about naturalistic primate behavior, including following around owl monkeys in Formosa, Argentina.

Credit: Clay Wilton

Being a ‘field’ researcher is rewarding. We collect data on events that no one else is ever likely to see, like the hostile reactions of a family group to another family group on territory boundaries (think of the Jets and the Sharks from West Side Story), or the sexy calls of a solitary animal to locate potential mates. After observing our non-human primate relatives in the wild, it’s extremely difficult not to be hooked on wanting to know more about their similarities and differences with humans.  For instance, humans have language at our our disposal, but what about our primate relatives? This is the question driving my current research directions. Perhaps surprisingly, the wealth of research on primate communication suggests that overall, non-human primates have relatively simple ways of communicating vocally – using small repertoires of sounds and rarely combining these sounds into complex sequences. Preliminary observations and analysis carried out by my academic supervisor at the University of Michigan, Dr. Thore Bergman, collaborator Dr. Aliza le Roux and I suggest that gelada monkeys are one of the rare species that produce a large repertoire of vocalizations and express the special ability to combine these vocalizations. Gelada monkeys, a primate endemic to the highlands of Ethiopia, are particularly interesting because they  produce and combine together several unique vocalizations that do not have homologous versions produced by closely related monkey species.

“Do you actually get paid for that?”

To answer this question, I explain that funding for research comes from two sides: the first side is to cover your living expenses, or salary, and the second is to cover the research itself. Both types of funding have their own unique challenges to a budding scientist in the world of primate behaviour. Main sources of funding for U.S. graduate students to carry out research on primate behavior come from dissertation grants from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright, and the Leakey Foundation. As with most funding sources, these organizations were hit hard by the recession. With no choice but to restrict budgets, this means that researchers have to “apply for anything and everything” with the hope that at least 10% of their grant applications will succeed in the heightened competition from their peers’ applications. In a sense, the scene is becoming much more like individual-biased sport, with a greater and greater weaning of athlete scientists from the arena over time. Yet, science isn’t an individualistic sport, right? Shouldn’t we be working together as a team to enhance our understanding of the natural world?

This funding competition is what has driven some researchers to locate novel ways to fund their work. Recently, I have run into an idea called ‘crowdfunding’ – this basically means that you seek out sponsorship from the public. I just began advertising my proposed gelada monkey communication research on a newly launched crowdfunding website called Petridish.org.  Several of my colleagues and I are excited about Petridish because its benefits are two-fold. Not only is it a potential source for funding for projects that would be unaffordable otherwise, we also have the opportunity to interact directly with the public. This ‘outreach’ phase in science often happens after your projects are said and done, and Petridish gives us the chance to excite people one-on-one about our research right at the very beginning. It’s great that people can now be a part of scientific discovery from start to finish.

Already, 42 people have decided to back my project and I have reached 50% of my funding goal. There are still 4 weeks to go before my time is up and I leave for a 2-month field season in Ethiopia (to be followed by another 4-5 months next January). Seeing the enthusiasm from my backers on Petridish has only boosted my excitement about my upcoming fieldwork. It’s comforting to know that several people will be looking forward to email updates on the project when I am in the field and when I am back in the USA analyzing my data. I hope that this website is a success so that it can be a resource for future scientists to interact with the public and find support for their research. I encourage readers to check out the website and spread the news to friends and colleagues.

Often found hip-deep in Madagascar mud, Dr. Brian Fisher is a modern day explorer who has devoted his life to the study and conservation of ants and biodiversity around the world. He is Curator of Entomology at CAS and adjunct professor at UCB and SFSU.  He created the annual Ant Course in 2001, AntWeb in 2002, and the Madagascar Biodiversity Center in 2004. He has published over 90 articles on ants, and trains dozens of international graduate students in the taxonomy and natural history of ants, skills enabling them to use ants as an important indicator of biodiversity across the globe.

In the past, scientists could depend on just a few government sources such as NSF or NIH to support our programs. But as funding opportunities there have decreased, we have had no option but to develop alternative sources to keep our research programs moving forward as we wait for the next NSF grant. One way to deal with the current funding environment in science is to act more like an entrepreneur and cultivate a portfolio of investors to support research programs. Because I am often locked up in my office looking at ants, it was not apparent how I could meet potential donors. A recently launched site, Petridish, provides just the service I’d been looking for. It matches research ideas with interested members of the public willing to invest in projects.  Crowdsourcing, as such matchmaking services are called, could help locate patrons to support science activities. If the Medicis, who helped support Leonardo da Vinci, represent the patronage of the 1%, Petridish offers patronage to the 99%. When I first learned about Petridish, I realized this concept could be very helpful to those studying primates or maybe elephants. I was less certain the average person would be interested in supporting my research into organisms which most people consider “invisible” or see only as a kitchen pest.

Monormorium worker ant caring brood. Photo credit Brian L Fisher

My research on ant taxonomy and evolution starts with very simple question: what species exist and where? My goal is to place ants on equal footing with birds in ecological and conservation studies across the world. With only an estimated 15% of life  on Earth described, it’s clear that we need a renewed investment in species discovery and description to reach this vision. Convincing the general public to support this research is quite different than writing a proposal to colleagues at NSF. The challenge is to find a way to make them investment partners in the research. Some might be convinced once they realize that ants are the glue that holds ecosystems together. Others might care because species discovery improves our understanding of the history and evolution of life on this planet. Still others may be moved by the adventure of discovery (if you have any doubt that species discovery is one of the greatest adventures left on earth, check out these photos and images of Madagascar after cyclone Irina hit the island in early March of this year).

I recently gave Petridish.org a try and put together a request for backers for an expedition to discover new ant species in a remote region of Madagascar. The project is now almost completely funded and demonstrates that crowdsourcing has real potential to support my research program. For an NSF grant, we are used to devoting three weeks of writing aimed at other experts in the field to prepare the proposal. With crowdsourcing, we need to get used to developing text and video aimed at a much wider audience.  For me, this was not easy – I needed to figure out how to make a video and create and develop a compelling project description.

At a time when there is growing public concern about the role and importance of basic science, we need scientists who can also act as advocates. No longer can we afford to work in isolation without engaging the broader public in our endeavors. The public must understand the importance of funding science and the role of science in society.  Crowdsourcing, in addition to funding science, offers a great way for scientists to connect directly with the public. In the long run, methods that invite the community to take part will hopefully help to keep science funded.

To find out more about science funding you can read this special Nature News feature,  Finding philanthropy: Like it? Pay for it.

A New Era of Science Funding – Part 2: Kickstarter Success and #IamScience

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Over the years science funding has changed significantly. In the past, funding would have been obtained through private benefaction from wealthy individuals. Today, researchers are usually funded by a mixture of grants from government agencies, non-profit foundations and institutions. However, with the increasing popularity of social media and the internet, methods used to obtain money may be undergoing a shift. New routes linking funding sources with scientists are being increasingly explored. Tighter budgets and struggling economies are driving a need for new ways of funding and social media is proving to be invaluable in raising awareness of projects and linking like-minded people more effectively.

In this special Soapbox Science series, we focus on the new ways in which science groups and individuals are obtaining funding and how projects such as Petridish, Tekla Labs, Kickstarter and the #scifundchallenge may change the future of scientific research.

Jessica Morrison earned her B.S. in geology from Middle Tennessee State University, and she is currently an actinide geochemistry Ph.D. candidate at the University of Notre Dame. She is a frequent contributor to the Scientific American guest blog, an editorial board member for Frontiers in Energy Research, and an accomplished Mario Kart player. She blogs with appreciation for creativity, communication, yoga, and uranium at I Heart the Road. Jessica can be found on Google+ and Twitter as @ihearttheroad.

The traditional image of a scientist is changing. No longer will the boring, white-coated stereotype represent a diverse population—at least not if Kevin Zelnio has his way. The independent scientist and communications strategist knows a lot about being non-traditional and since mid-January he’s used the Twitter hashtag #IamScience to spread the word that those who struggle are not alone; like wildfire, #IamScience jumped from Twitter to blogs to Tumblr.

The next step for Zelnio is a free e-book curating the stories—an endeavor he’ll pay for using Kickstarter, the largest online crowdfunding tool for creative projects.

Kickstarter has been around since 2008 and it works like this: an idea is born, a proposal is written and, with any luck, generous backers contribute to fund the idea. Kickstarter campaigns, however, are all or nothing, which means that a funding goal must be met by the proposed deadline or the project loses all backing. These campaigns are typically in the realm of creative endeavor and the most successful have funded a video game, an iPod dock and a webcomic re-print. These projects all have one thing in common: an engaged community of would-be backers.

The #IamScience Kickstarter campaign ends on Thursday and it has already exceeded its goal of $3500 by more than $2000. The campaign couldn’t have come at a better time to pull in community support. It kicked off in the month following ScienceOnline2012 —an un-conference which generated more than 30,000 tweets using the Twitter hashtag #scio12.

“This is a community effort and I’m just the one harnessing the energy,” says Kevin Zelnio. “While I’m the one taking charge of the project, it wouldn’t be anything without the contributions from everyone else involved.”

While the original goal was a free e-book weaving together #IamScience submissions, Kevin Zelnio is now planning a print-run to get books into the hands of high school students. The intention is to inspire them to become more involved in science and to show that anyone can become a scientist, regardless of background.

“There are people in high school who think that a career in science is out of their reach because they are a certain way—a punk rocker getting off drugs or an average person not doing well in a science course,” says Kevin Zelnio. “If you don’t do well in science at the high school level, there’s very little chance you’re going to stay interested or find a renewed interest later on in life.”

In a similar vein  and with like-minded goals to the #IamScience Kickstarter campaign,  another creative science project, Citizen Science Quarterly, also saw success in its launch. Jacob Shiach, a bioinformatics-trained advocate of independent science research, dreamed up Citizen Science Quarterly, a magazine dedicated to spreading the idea that anyone can do science.  He launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the magazine and the campaign overshot its goal of $2500 by more than $5000—a good thing says Jacob Shiach.

“I grossly underestimated the cost,” says Jacob Shiach. “By having 300 percent, we had just enough money to cover all the prizes and print the magazine.”

Jacob Shiach raises an interesting point about Kickstarter, explaining that one of the ways to attract backers is to offer rewards at specific funding levels. Common rewards include bumper stickers, t-shirts, free products or the backer’s name listed as a sponsor. The rewards can be an expensive part of a Kickstarter campaign if they are not well thought out.

Kevin Zelnio’s top reward for backing #IamScience is a custom written and performed song that he’ll produce himself. Similarly, Jacob Shiach offered an original piece of cover artwork, a year-long subscription to Citizen Science Quarterly, a couple of t-shirts, merit badges and the backer’s name printed on the back cover of the magazine.

“I think a lot of people underestimate the cost of doing Kickstarter,” says Jacob Shiach. “Since it’s all or nothing, you really shouldn’t underestimate your costs.”

The first issue of Citizen Science Quarterly was funded by Kickstarter, but subsequent campaigns for the magazine have been less successful—failing for issues two, three and four. The magazine’s campaign seems to be missing the necessary community component.

“We haven’t really made the magazine as available as we would like. We aren’t doing advertisement and we depend on people to buy the magazine to produce the next issue,” says Jacob Shiach. “To get people excited about the magazine, they have to actually read it. It’s been a catch-22.”

While Jacob Shiach raises concerns about crowdfunding for science endeavors, Kevin Zelnio is hopeful.

“The speed at which crowdfunding works can be astonishing really. Kickstarter is a great model for small-scale science projects, but the problem is finding your audience,” says Kevin Zelnio. “I have the luxury of being a part of the ScienceOnline community. If you can get one or two major donors to bump up your funding it seems to create a pull-effect where the more people donate, more people want to donate.”

You can see some of the #IamScience tweets in the video below:

I Am Science from Mindy Weisberger on Vimeo.

The success of these endeavors is echoed in Kevin Zelnio’s words:

“Magical things can happen when you enthusiastically open your mouth on the internet.”

To find out more about science funding you can read this special Nature News feature,  Finding philanthropy: Like it? Pay for it.

A new era of Science Funding – Part 1: Individual Scientists as Active Global Citizens.

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Over the years science funding has changed significantly. In the past, funding would have been obtained through private benefaction from wealthy individuals. Today, researchers are usually funded by a mixture of grants from government agencies, non-profit foundations and institutions. However, with the increasing popularity of social media and the internet, methods used to obtain money may be undergoing a shift. New routes linking funding sources with scientists are being increasingly explored. Tighter budgets and struggling economies are driving a need for new ways of funding and social media is proving to be invaluable in raising awareness of projects and linking like-minded people more effectively.

In this special Soapbox Science series, we focus on the new ways in which science groups and individuals are obtaining funding and how projects such as Petridish, Tekla Labs, Kickstarter and the #scifundchallenge may change the future of scientific research.

Lina Nilsson is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Berkeley, where she works on the development and evaluation of CellScope, a portable smartphone-based microscope that can be used to diagnose infectious diseases in low-resource rural settings worldwide. She is also the co-founder of Tekla Labs, an initiative to increase access to laboratory infrastructure globally. Tekla Labs is a community of researchers that creates easy-to-follow instructions for how to build research-grade laboratory equipment using locally available supplies.

To take part in Tekla Labs’ 3D printing for science competition, visit us at teklalabs.org. General comments, equipment building instructions and ideas for future initiatives are also welcome.

Individual Scientists as Active Global Citizens.

Meeting global challenges in health, environment and development will require breakthroughs from the entire global scientific community, not just a selected set of industrialized countries. Today, the potential of many scientists in developing countries is not being efficiently harnessed because they lack adequate hands-on training as well as the infrastructure to advance research in their own labs. These international capacity-gaps are generally tackled on the level of governments, NGOs and large institutions. In reality, to address the pressing global challenges, we do not have the luxury of time or money to rely solely on these conventional measures for capacity building. I argue here that the scientific community should also step up to address international inequities in science research by engaging individual scientists on a grassroots level. With crowd-based initiatives that allow many individuals to contribute in small and easy ways, scientists can become active members of a global science community.

My organization, Tekla Labs, is one small example of such a grassroots initiative. We provide a community platform where academic researchers, DIY enthusiasts and others can share their detailed in-house solutions to building standard laboratory equipment. These DIY solutions can range from the most basic (e.g. a kitchen blender adapted into a multi-speed benchtop centrifuge) to the more sophisticated (LED-light spectrophotometer). However, Tekla Labs is only one example of how individual researchers can help lift the global scientific research base.  Scientists are a creative and engaged group, and we should create a multitude of infrastructure options to channel some of this energy to support research in emerging-science regions of the world.  To start the dialogue, I propose ideas for three projects with a low energy-barrier for entry that could engage individuals to improve scientific research worldwide:

  • Kickstarter for Science. Online crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter allow artists to solicit funding from individuals for creative projects in areas such as film and music. What if there was a similarly well-visited and well-supported site for scientific research projects, where researchers worldwide could pitch their research projects, large and small? Instead of having to convince a small set of expert reviewers (who tend to favor established scientists from well-known institutions and generally are limited to in-country solicitations), the proposals would be written to a larger online community of people interested in scientific inquiry. With a ‘Kickstarter for Science,’ individuals – whether academic researchers, company scientists or lay enthusiasts – could pool their donations (in money, expertise or time) to support research projects internationally in areas such as education, health and sustainability. A successful “Kickstarter for Science” could be an easy opportunity for individuals to support fellow researchers globally on specific, defined projects in areas that we care passionately about as scientists.
  • Buy Your Consumables, Sponsor a Lab. What if every time you bought basic supplies, like pipette tips or falcon tubes, a small donation was made by the supply company to a ‘sponsored’ laboratory in a developing country? Last year, Kate Lovero at Tekla Labs ran a small pilot program with the help of the local representative of one of the major laboratory supply companies.  The set up was simple: Based on a given percentage of the value of the purchases from our group of laboratories, the supply company allowed a partner laboratory in Peru to order reagents free of charge. In the U.S., companies that sell lab consumables often offer small incentives for university research groups, such as free coffee, pizza, or ‘buy 10 get 1 free’ promotions.  We get plenty of free pizza opportunities at our university as is, and one could say that we basically replaced the standard incentive system with an international donation program that was based on our purchases. I propose that some version of this sponsorship program should be more widely offered by laboratory supply companies. Many of us are scientists because we want to in some way have positive impact on the world, and this could be one small but easy way to do so as part of the every-day running of our laboratories.
  • PRINTmyLAB: 3D-printing for science. My organization, Tekla Labs, addresses the lack of laboratory infrastructure across the world by creating DIY blueprints for building your own equipment. Other organizations have extensive donation programs for used or new equipment.  For my last project proposal, I give you something more radical: PRINTmyLAB. What basic repairs, supplies and equipment could be made locally using a 3D printer? NASA is exploring 3D printing as a flexible approach for replacing spare parts in space on the principle that if you can simply bring the machine that makes the parts, then you bring all the different replacement parts you could possibly need? Not too long ago, even basic-functionality 3D printers cost tens of thousands of dollars. Today, the cheapest versions are well under $1000, and prices are continually dropping for all model levels. In PRINTmyLAB, a competition that Tekla Labs is currently running, we ask what science supplies could be printed on location in labs around the globe? Until April 30th, we are challenging researchers to submit their favorite 3D printer designs.  There are two categories: 1) alternatives to commercial options and 2) novel DIY designs. To learn more about rules, prizes and to submit designs, go to teklalabs.org/3Dprinting.

This article is a call for individual scientists to become more active global citizens and to work together to improve scientific research and education for all. While for some, this is a calling that defines their career, it does not have to be one’s main focus to be valuable. I want to show here that there are also small yet impactful ways in which we could all contribute to the global science community.  What we are missing are the platforms to enable simple and straightforward scientist-to-scientist sharing of resources, expertise and ideas.

Thanks go out to Tekla Labs’ members Kevin Lance, Kate Lovero, Bertram Koelsch, Javier Rosa, Todd Duncombe and Naomi Kort for their awesome work on Tekla Labs in general and the initiatives ‘PRINTmyLAB’ and ‘Buy Your Consumables, Sponsor a Lab’ in particular.

To find out more about science funding you can read this special Nature News feature,  Finding philanthropy: Like it? Pay for it.