projects that you’ve already almost completed (hiding the fact that they’re almost completed, so that you can use the funding for completely new projects), or
new projects that you haven’t really started yet (for which you might just have some preliminary data)?
Do you think 1) is unethical? Do you think 1) is necessary? Do you think 1) has the highest chances of funding? Please comment :)
There is a third option - write about almost completed projects, but don't hid the fact they are almost completed. Some funders are well known for only funding projects that are almost complete - the joke being that they fund the last figure.
@elduvelle I think there's a big gap between UK and US on this (don't know about other countries). In US it seemed like an open secret that you put a whole papers worth of work as "preliminary" data on your NIH app. In UK you still need prelim data but nowhere near as much. I even got a Leverhulme grant with zero prelim data.
@elduvelle thanks for posting this question - so informative to see the diversity of responses! It's shocking to learn about the fraudulent practice #1. Grant proposals should fund new research, and identify work in progress as such. Mandatory public pre-registration could prevent #1.
@renebekkers Hmm, I’m not a fan of #1 either but if by mandatory pre-registration you mean doing it for any experiment that you’re about to start… that would just add a lot of work to already overwhelmed researchers and would probably reduce innovative and exploratory projects a lot. I’d be more in favour of giving more freedom to researchers, not less.
Maybe we should wonder why do people feel like they need to do #1? Maybe they think those mature projects are more likely to be funded, because the grant people are risk-adverse, and maybe that is the problem? Or maybe they don’t want to give out their best ideas for fear of someone stealing them? 🤔
In any case, the current grant system doesn’t seem optimal at all, and so wasteful…
@elduvelle@renebekkers That's a good question, 1) sounds unethical but it also feels like if that's not what you do you never get funded because then feedback about your application is always something like "you did not prove that what you propose is going to work"...
@elduvelle indeed a lot of time and money is wasted on grant proposals and their evaluation. For a competition I entered once the waste was 40% of the total amount granted. https://renebekkers.wordpress.com/2020/02/19/cut-the-crap-fund-the-research/
A system with a basic income for research would be better, or lotteries among those with eligible proposals.
@elduvelle I usually put it as 'in progress', definitely have done for grant applications, if its advanced enough for a pre-print, that would solve the issue.
Often takes several years to run a project, with the final analysis and manuscript writing taking another 2 years. Sometimes it takes the whole duration of the grant to just run the analysis and send the paper out, maybe get it accepted on time for the final grant report.
Timelines in research are far more dilated than the span of grants. Until funders change this, they will be getting a mixture of new and almost done projects among the proposals.
@albertcardona@elduvelle my issue with this is that if some people accept it's ok to hide a truth, because incentives, then the truthful people tend to lose out. No matter the reality of research, I think it's not ethical.
@albertcardona@elduvelle 'hiding the fact that they’re almost completed' is the issue, not high quality preliminary data. Anyways, I'm happy I'm not alone thinking 1) is unethical, and I've seen it happen in a grant application in a way that I found unethical. but I can see opinions differ!
@maartjeoostdijk@albertcardona@elduvelle my experience of applying are limited, but my mentors share a lot of applications with me: I can agree no one hide how much they are in the project, it is just funder tend to fund almost complete proposals for their regular calls, so you are forced to do that when you are able to to boost the chances. So it is like "hey we are almost done, do you want to piggyback?" Some specific calls however specifically want projects with NO preliminary data too.
@kofanchen That makes sense, as long as everyone is honest with each other!
I heard (don’t remember for which grant) that even though its guidelines said “no preliminary data required” your chances were still higher if you did add preliminary data… I really wish all these ‘hidden rules’ were not hidden… it is totally unfair to those who are not in the know for one reason or another @maartjeoostdijk@albertcardona
@elduvelle@maartjeoostdijk@albertcardona all you need is to talk to review panel/study group members that you know, they cannot review your grants ( in UK anyway) but they will have clear understanding what the panel are looking at and what are the red flags and sometimes the trend of amount of preliminary data needed to provide confidence of funder
@maartjeoostdijk@albertcardona@elduvelle to add, we still apply with limited preliminary data and hope for the best, but with understanding of the risk of not being funded. On the other hand, the almost complete projects were not necessarily having plan sail either, they can simply be viewed as "boring" or "pointless" by opinionated reviewers....
@albertcardona@elduvelle but yes, it's one element of many in research funding and other incentives that would need an overhaul to create a system where it's less beneficial to be unethical and conduct fraud.
There comes a point where the only ethical option is to try to prioritise overhauling the system. For many people in UK academia this happened long ago.
However, to overhaul the system people need to survive. The result is people trying to balance between surviving with some degree of unethical behaviour and overhauling the system.
@RichardShaw@albertcardona@elduvelle I can see the reasoning. I've not seen obviously unethical behaviour going together with behaviour that helps overhaul the system, but it probably exists ;) I've seen people survive and do very well with (in my view) ethical behaviour. I've got zero experience with the UK system, and only with my field in other regions, so I'm just expressing opinions from my perspective.
The problem with unethical behaviour is that it's rarely obvious and generally lies in a murky grey area of competing challenges and compromises.
For most disciplines academic publishing is an obvious example. There is no way the current for profit publishing model represents reasonable value for money for tax payers. The most ethical option would be to refuse to engage with it, but for academic medical research that would be career suicide.
@RichardShaw@maartjeoostdijk@albertcardona@elduvelle
I think this is one of those situations where responsibility is not on the individual, but on the society. The question "should I/should I not publish in it" is a false dilemma, there is a third option "don't fret over that, instead work with others to establish an alternative system, switch to it as soon as viable and achieve enough political power to replace the old system with it".
The inability of the academics to do that is absurd.
Now the onus is on removing from evaluation criteria the "it's a <glamour journal> paper" shortcut, and disqualify anyone using that from membership in search committes or grant/dept./unit evaluation panels.
And to further drive the stake in by raising the issue with high-retraction rate journals, among which many glamour journals. Publishing in a glamour journal should sound suspicious, should require special dispensation to be included among evaluation criteria for recruitment/promotion/awards.
I am doing it. The pushback is brutal, but I don't care: I have enough credentials. The excuses I hear are bufonic. It's quite easy to do actually, all it takes is asking, "have you read the paper?" in all circumstances.
Add comment