Where will all the Smart Ideas go?

The Ministry for Science and Innovation (MSI) released all the documentation for the 2012 Science Investment round in December. Well, the final Guidelines will be out in mid-February and there will be workshops then too but there is plenty to be getting on with. I’ve been working with various groups getting proposals underway so I’m getting familiar with the material.

The funding is split into various subject oriented areas, Biological Industries, High Value Manufacturing and Services, Environmental, Health and Society, Energy and Minerals, and Hazards and Infrastructure, so it is clear what the research is supposed to be on. This is quite a radical change from the past. Then we hadfunds such as the rather arcane NERF, no not the squishy rubber balls but the New Economy Research Fund, and RFI, Research for Industry; pots that left the previous Minister scratching his head as to what he was actually funding.

Within each subject area a set of funding mechanisms (if you can think of something else to call them let MSI know) is applied to get different sorts of research underway. Smart Ideas, short term funding broadly aimed at giving researchers a go at getting something going and getting industry, or other end-users (ok, if you can think of a better inclusive term then…) interested; Targeted Research, we are still waiting to hear the length of the funding, but projects to get something specific done for industry or end users with their involvement, and Enabling Technologies for big programmes of research that will underpin a whole sector. I think of it as a matrix with the subject areas down the side and a range of funding mechanisms across the top. There is the Marsden Fund taking care of fundamental research at one end to Technology for Business Growth sharing the applied load with industry at the other. The three mechanisms above cover much of the middle ground.

I liked this approach from the first time my then colleagues showed it to me. You can see very clearly what the research is expected to achieve, who it is for and how it is supposed to get the results you are looking for. Priorities can be set and funded by choosing which squares, by research area and mechanism, to put the money in and by asking the right research questions. This avoids having to wrestle with the fondly remembered 72 or so research ‘portfolios’ of my research career. Obviously there are still difficulties. You may feel that the priorities are wrong; there isn’t enough money to put into each square of the matrix; you are relying on someone to make good decisions to get the balance of what goes into each square right and ask sensible research questions. But at least with this system you should be able to see where the money is going on so you can be sure why you don’t like it.

The funding mechanism that has attracted the most interest amongst the people I talk to is Smart Ideas. When you read the Preliminary Guidelines you see that the projects are relatively small (a maximum of $500,000 pa for two years) so they don’t have to be too complex; early career researchers (we could call them ECRs if we chose) are ‘encouraged’ to apply because there isn’t much need for a track record; you get to build links with end users as you go along so you don’t need too many existing contacts; and the research questions are pretty broad so you don’t have to feel constrained as to the research you will do. Add to that the relatively short application required, at around 10 pages, and it all looks very attractive.

So what’s not to like?

Well, obviously, everybody has a Smart Idea or two up their sleeves somewhere so there is going to be a lot of competition. If you look at the funding available in Rhadegund’s favourite areas you’ll see that you’ll have to be the 5th or 6th Smartest Idea in Biological Industries or maybe 16th or 17th in High Value Manufacturing and Services to get accepted. So a lot of Smart Ideas are not going to become funded ideas in this round.  I’m not sure that this is a bad thing – the short application means that not much effort is wasted and once written down you can look at your Smart Idea and decide it maybe wasn’t so smart after all and move on or, even better, look around for someone else to fund it.  In industry perhaps – go on, pick up the phone.

How a fair judgement will be made on such a short application will be the question asked once the letters declining funding roll out but I hope MSI stands firm on that one and keeps the applications short.

But I think Smart Ideas raises some more complex issues. Two years to make industry take notice and another two to get them fully involved? In terms of research progress the time is very short to go from raw idea to something that can get picked up.  I would guess that most ideas coming straight out of an early career researcher with little pre-existing industry knowledge will take at least twice that to look convincing to industry. So, too short for real research progress but in terms of most industry time scales it is forever – with market and personnel changes, keeping a company engaged for that long will need real work. I hope that perseverance, vision and flexibility are somewhere in the assessment criteria for both researcher and potential industry partner. On the plus side the panels should have so many Smart Ideas to choose from that if they know the industry they will be able to pick ones that last the distance.

Most concerning is what do we do with all these early career researchers once we have encouraged them to link up with industry and get their Smart Ideas off the ground? I can see why catching researchers early and getting them to build relationships with industry that will last their careers and see their work applied in the market is a good thing, but what  happens next? There isn’t a huge amount of funding in the Targeted Research or Enabling Technologies pools to support the mid career researchers once all these links have been made. There is maybe other institutional funding, Core Funding for the CRIs and various non-project based funding for other institutions to keep projects going.  But it will be hard to sustain all the careers kicked off by Marsden Fast Starts, Rutherford Fellowships, the old FRST Postdocs and now Smart Ideas unless some serious thought is given to the middle of their research careers, where researchers are most productive.

I can see why there is such a rush for policies to support young/emerging/early career researchers.  It’s a bit like charities that focus on children. They are more appealing. You read a lot of articles about the up-and-coming researchers of tomorrow and a few on the big names who have lasted the distance so politicians like to announce policies that help them. Not the in-between. It’s always good to feel you are getting something new going. It’s not so much fun to announce that you are going to do more of the same.

So where will the money to turn our wide eyed early career researchers into distinguished grey-whatevers come from? In the current environment here is one place where the investment in research is growing. Industry

[1]. So really pick up that phone. Keep talking to industry, find out who you can work with and keep the conversation going. Show them how research works and that it will add value to their business in the long term. If you don’t, your mid-career is looking a little bleak. You need their money and they’ll only give it to people they trust.

Although there probably isn’t any need to worry. The policy time frame is pretty short as well and in two years all the new people running the science funding system out of the Ministry for Economic Development might have the problem solved.



[1] See Chapter 2 of Powering Innovation, Improving access to and uptake of R&D in the high value manufacturing and services sector, MSI, 2011

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