As a task for Justin, Amber and I went on an expedition to find out what sort of opportunities there are for academics that would like to collect money outside of grant services for research, experiments, projects and other academic related material (what Justin termed as “microgranting”). We were unsure if platforms like kickstarter would be suitable for projects not explicitly “innovative” or “creative” that’s end goal did not necessarily have a monetary value. Also whether schools endorsed and approved this sort of funding, outside of institutional channels.
Through my google searches, read it, sub read its and blog hunts I was pleasantly surprised to find a ton of websites devoted to just this topic. Exceedingly so was the concentration in the scientific fields, supporting costly experiments that would not be understood or easily marketed to the average novice. In addition to these explicit academic funding sites were the typical kickstarter and crowd funding platforms we have become accustomed to seeing advertised for new start ups, indie films, and techno-savy inventions.
It was through this exploration that I realized how connected much of academia is now with those outside of it. I am sure we have all had the debate on whether research for research sake is really as important over something perhaps more functional – ie: whether doing a study on the effects of breast cancer without talking to a single patient is grounded in reality and can be applicable in the real world. What I like about the blog posts I read and the websites I visited is that these projects were more available for the masses, connecting the work being done in institutions to the larger world. I found myself following the readits and the sub readits of certain projects I had never heard of but seemed so fascinating and outside my scope. In addition to the information provided, some of the projects were even open to discussion, allowing for people to help the researcher decide on a relevant topic.
This type of interaction I found immensely promising, as it is something I tried to utilize as I was deciding on the trajectory of my thesis work. Although research for research sake is still a valuable tool in expanding other work or laying the ground work for innovative research, the ability to directly connect to the public without the hassle of the IRB and focus groups felt quite liberating to me. I know that as any of the ideas progressed they would have to engage in some of those more rigid academic regulations, but for the conception phase the sky was the limit. Many times I think we can get stuck in our discipline or academic way of thinking because we are surrounded by similar minded folks, but online the dialog as the ability to really take off – taking your initial ideas to somewhere completely different.
So, for those of you who are curious or need something funded yourself or if you have a project you want to discuss or get some feedback on I have listed below some of the resources I found that might be helpful either for funding a pet project you might not be able to find or obtain a grant for., or discussing the topic of research you might want to engage in. There are also some articles that expand on these ideas and describe how this will continue to evolve into the future. Enjoy!
Websites that fund academic research (much of it for scientific experiments):
- https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/publishing/academic?ref=category
- http://startsomegood.com/
- https://experiment.com/
- http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428475/a-kickstarter-for-academic-research/
- http://www.theopensourcescienceproject.com/
- http://sciflies.org/
- http://www.petridish.org/
- http://scifundchallenge.org/
- http://we-search.org/
- http://www.iamscientist.com/
- http://www.medstartr.com/
- http://www.raregenomics.org/
- http://sciencedonors.com/
- http://www.fundageek.com/
- http://eurekafund.org/
Articles:
Good article on using kickstarter and reddit together to get financial support and also help inform the possible direction of research: http://dmlcentral.net/blog/antero-garcia/why-we-need-reddit-and-kickstarter-educational-research
Good article about funding through online resources and link to experiment.com
Science
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/science/12crowd.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Economists
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/researchers-can-scholarship-be-crowdfunded