

Scientist Gets Research Donations From Crowd Funding - irollboozers
http://www.npr.org/2013/02/14/171975368/scientist-gets-research-donations-from-crowdfunding

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mjt0229
I am not thrilled about this development. It's not that I think this scientist
isn't being clever or useful. The real problem is that not all science is sexy
enough to draw funding this way. More specifically, a lot of really important
science does not make for a great elevator pitch.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying by seeing the pot of potential science funding as
inherently limited. However, I fear that if we give the public the idea that
science should be funded this way, then we deemphasize basic science, making
it even harder for groundbreaking work to get funded.

~~~
Matti
"A common myth regarding science crowdfunding is that only charismatic
projects are funded. The topic of the research, however, is less important to
the project’s success than the crowd a project engages. Almost any topic in
science can be made interesting to audiences. For example, as part of the
#SciFund Challenge (a science-specific crowdfunding initiative) many esoteric
projects have been successfully funded. From a project researching the dormant
stages of Daphnia to another investigating pure ecological statistics,
projects that appear to have limited public appeal have been successful, due
to the tremendous outreach campaigns by the scientists behind them."

\-- Wheat et al. 2013. Raising money for scientific research through
crowdfunding:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534712...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534712002984)

~~~
mjt0229
Unfortunately, the authors do not provide a citation for that statement. It
appears that they simply browsed the SciFund website and made a subjective
evaluation based on the list of projects there. That hardly qualifies as a
thorough analysis.

