KNAW: 'Give scientists their own working capital'
The battle for research funding has gotten out of hand, says a committee of the KNAW science association. A fund that scientists can use without competition, a so-called rolling grant fund, should take the pressure off the kettle.
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A sympathetic plan, de AOb, but without more permanent appointments at universities, the problems in scientific education are not solved.
The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) distributes hundreds of millions of euros in research money every year. Scientists spend a lot of time writing grant applications to qualify for this. This is often wasted effort: the chances of success are slim.
Slalom
This has to change, says a committee of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) led by Professor and Spinoza Prize winner Bert Weckhuysen. Because of this slalom from project grant to project grant, Dutch science has become fragmented. 'There is a lack of continuity', the committee members write in a new advisory report.
Their proposal: provide all university lecturers, associate professors and professors who have a permanent position at a university or university medical center (UMC) with their own working capital. Then they don't have to keep knocking on the door of NWO.
Permanent appointments
A plan with positive aspects, responds AObdirector Donald Pechler: "But we don't think it solves the problems within the universities." Promising according to the AOb the impetus to reduce the workload when applying for subsidies. Only the own working capital - in the advice of the KNAW - is reserved for assistant professors, associate professors and professors with a permanent appointment. Pechler: "We are actually advocating that more scientists get such a permanent contract. Scientists who then have both research and teaching tasks."
Such a growth in the number of permanent jobs also requires a substantial investment, but at the same time solves more problems, according to the AOb. Pechler: "Think of the reduction of the very large number of scientists with temporary employment and the lack of career prospects." The AOb therefore wants a higher government grant per student, at the level of the year 2000. Pechler: "Since that year, student numbers have risen sharply, but the universities were only compensated for education, not for the research that is a prerequisite for good academic education This will be remedied with an increase in the government grant."
The idea of the KNAW boils down to one rolling grant-fund. At the beginning of this year, committee chairman Weckhuysen already spoke about this in one interview with the Higher Education Press Agency (HOP). Scholarships are financed from such a fund that match the various phases of the academic ladder. The money would be provided to the universities and UMCs as an 'earmarked budget'. They then determine who receives the grant and when. “The new system makes use of the existing promotion procedures and assessment systems of the universities and UMCs,” the committee writes. This avoids additional paperwork.
Research line
Scientists who receive a rolling grant decide for themselves how they spend it. As long as it fits within the research line. For example, they can use it to hire a PhD candidate or technician, or to buy a certain piece of equipment. The expected costs are more than half a billion euros, according to the KNAW committee members. New resources must be created for this, they emphasize in their report: 'With a shift in existing resources, the introduction of the fund will create or exacerbate problems elsewhere in the science system.' It is also certainly not the intention that the fund replaces existing NWO grants.
Read more about what the AOb does for the sector scientific education & research.
