Innovative Science

Sir, We write as senior scientists about a problem vital to the scientific enterprise and prosperity. Nowadays, funding is a lengthy and complex business. First, universities themselves must approve all proposals for submission. Funding agencies then subject those that survive to peer review, a process by which a few researchers, usually acting anonymously, assess a proposal's chances that it will achieve its goals, is the best value for money, is relevant to a national priority and will impact on a socio-economic problem. Only 25% of proposals received by the funding agencies are funded. These protracted processes force researchers to exploit existing knowledge, severely discourage open-ended studies and are hugely time-consuming. They are also new: before 1970, few researchers wrote proposals. Now they are virtually mandatory

Innovative Science

Sir, We write as senior scientists about a problem vital to the scientific enterprise and prosperity. Nowadays, funding is a lengthy and complex business. First, universities themselves must approve all proposals for submission. Funding agencies then subject those that survive to peer review, a process by which a few researchers, usually acting anonymously, assess a proposal's chances that it will achieve its goals, is the best value for money, is relevant to a national priority and will impact on a socio-economic problem. Only 25% of proposals received by the funding agencies are funded. These protracted processes force researchers to exploit existing knowledge, severely discourage open-ended studies and are hugely time-consuming. They are also new: before 1970, few researchers wrote proposals. Now they are virtually mandatory

Promoting the Planck Club: how defiant youth, irreverent researchers and liberated universities can foster prosperity indefinitely

Promoting the Planck Club presents rich mini histories of selected scientists whose work led to radical and transformational discoveries, their background, the prevailing scientific environment, and the conditions that allowed for their success. The text provides a broad audience of students, scientists, engineers, economists, and policymakers with ways to ensure that we take all steps to protect the flow of unpredictable scientific discoveries that are necessary for sustained levels of growth as well as ways to ensure that all steps are taken to protect the flow of unpredictable scientific discoveries