Scientific peer review

What if everyone was funded?

A reader email pointed us to this story (which was also discussed briefly on Sandwalk). A paper published in Accountability in Research (abstract only, subscription required) takes a look at NSERC statistics and finds that the costs for grant application and peer review exceed the cost to give every applicant a grant of $30000.

Using Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) statistics, we show that the $40,000 (Canadian) cost of preparation for a grant application and rejection by peer review in 2007 exceeded that of giving every qualified investigator a direct baseline discovery grant of $30,000 (average grant). This means the Canadian Federal Government could institute direct grants for 100% of qualified applicants for the same money.

The first thing that struck me was the $40000 cost for grant application and peer review. That seems ridiculous - almost as ridiculous as the fact that it costs more to review the grants than the money being given out. I also had some of the same concerns regarding quality control - but apparantly these are discussed in the paper itself. Unfortunately, I don't have access so I haven't read the full text, but Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock has, and has made some detailed comments about the paper and the eliminating the peer review of baseline grants. One of the authors has also joined the discussion there and is offering reprints to those who want to join the conversation.

Scholarpedia

What to you get when you add peer review to wikipedia?.... scholarpedia! The way it works is simple:

• Each article is written by an expert (invited or elected by the public).
• Each article is anonymously peer reviewed to ensure accurate and reliable information.
• Each article has a curator - typically its author -- who is responsible for its content.
• Any modification of the article needs to be approved by the curator before it appears in the final, approved version.

Considering the bad press wikipedia is getting these days, because unscrupulous corporations are using it censor and rewrite history, this is a welcomed newcomer. I mean who would you rather have edit an article about mass media, Fox News or Chomsky (this link is to an awesome Canadian documentary). I don't think it will ever really replace wikipedia, because lets face it, no scholar is going to write about star treck episodes and other pop knowledge you can readily find in wikipedia. Rather this will be more old school, but in a good way, like back during the french enlightenment when french philosopher Diderot explained the purpose: "to collect all the knowledge that now lies scattered over the face of the earth, to make known its general structure to the men among we live, and to transmit it to those who will come after us, to make men not only wiser but also more virtuous and more happy.". While at first glance this may seem elitist, I think it can only be a positive step for knowledge-sharing accurate information with the great unwashed common folks. Now all we need is a convergence of scholarpedia with open-access publications to form one cohesive, ever-improving body of knowledge.