UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS
Why some research areas appear relatively "over-funded"

By David Kent

I recently attended a large collaborative-research group meeting where, as part of the project, two members of the public were invited to attend the scientific research day.  The program is broadly under the "cancer research" umbrella and the two members of the public were patient advocates whose lives had both been touched by cancer. One of the personal stories that was shared stressed that some areas of cancer research are very poorly supported compared to others, and this had inspired her to fight for research funding for the tumour type that had killed her husband.

This story got me thinking about research-funding disparities between different cancers, and about research funding in general. It dawned on me that the perception of funding and the reality of funding might be quite different due to the structure of scientific research, and the (often artificial) pressure that funders put on scientists to justify their work.  This post explores some reasons for this discrepancy, and aims to encourage the general public and funders to look beyond a project's keywords and focus instead on supporting the best quality science that will help all fields move ahead faster.

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