Re:If Immunity Project (YC W14) succeeds, they'll offer AIDS...
by derefr on Thursday January 23, 2014 @06:13PM
(#7112139)
Hmm. I see an opportunity here for something that combines taxpayer pay-in with crowdfunding-style pay-out. Imagine if the NIH set some percentage of their budget aside for matching "donations" to crowdfunded science projects, at an extreme ratio, like 100:1 -- so $30k of demonstrated public interest would be matched with $3MM of NIH funding.
That seems, to me, to be within the spirit of representative democracy: for every 1 person who knows enough about X to put their money on the line, there's probably 100 people who would if they had X explained to them.
Re:If Immunity Project (YC W14) succeeds, they'll offer AIDS...
by yid on Thursday January 23, 2014 @07:51PM
(#7112663)
> so $30k of demonstrated public interest would be matched with $3MM of NIH funding.
This sets up a perverse incentive: the researchers who can best pander to a layperson crowd will have the highest chance, regardless of the technical merits of their proposal (which the general public almost certainly isn't qualified to judge).
Re:If Immunity Project (YC W14) succeeds, they'll offer AIDS...
by _delirium on Thursday January 23, 2014 @08:46PM
(#7112882)
Yeah, the first thing I thought of with this proposal was: this sounds like a great way to direct $$$ of NIH funding towards researching "why vaccination causes autism". For every $100k that Jenny McCarthy puts towards antivax research, the NIH would be compelled to match $10m...
I'm a grant writer who works for nonprofit and public agencies, and I actually just finished working on an NIH proposal.
Getting NIH funding is very hard. First you have to find a program that fits the purpose. Then you have to get the application instructions. Application instructions look something like this: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-13-383.html , and those are just the instructions. [1] Assuming you can actually write a coherent narrative (this isn't easy either), or hire someone to write one, you have to gather the numerous supporting documents.
Assuming you have a complete and technically correct application, you then have to a) wait, b) compete with everyone else submitting applications, and c) hope the reviewers understand what you just submitted. It can easily take a year or more from the time you think, "Gee, I should submit an application" to signing a contract with a program officer.
It may be worth doing but alternative approaches make sense too.
[1] Application instructions are so hard to read that people on HN routinely don't recognize them as opportunities to get money. There are a bundle of related Federal programs call Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) that I used to submit to HN because potential YC applicants might be interested in SBIRs. Eventually I stopped because they rarely got any upvotes.