Using democracy to award research funding: an observational study

Area of Science:

• Health and medical research funding systems.
• Scientific community engagement in funding allocation.

Background:

• Traditional health and medical research funding involves lengthy applications with low success rates.
• Current peer review systems consume significant researcher time, potentially detracting from actual research activities.
• Alternative funding models, such as democratic voting, are being explored to improve efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To pilot a democratic voting system for awarding research funding.
• To examine potential biases within a community-based voting system for research grants.
• To compare the time efficiency of voting versus traditional peer review.

Main Methods:

• An online survey was distributed to a convenience sample of Australian researchers.
• Participants were asked to nominate 10 scientists deserving of future research funding.
• Nominees were compared against recent winners of national fellowship schemes utilizing traditional peer review.

Main Results:

• Voting required a median of 5 minutes, potentially saving national research funding application time compared to peer review.
• The voting system showed a more equitable gender ratio (45:55 female to male) than fellowship winners (34:66).
• Voters exhibited institutional bias, and concerns about vote rigging and popularity contests were raised.

Conclusions:

• This preliminary study indicates that a voting system could be more time-efficient than traditional peer review.
• Democratic funding has the potential to distribute workload more broadly among reviewers.
• Further research and community discussion are essential to address concerns and refine alternative funding models.