Could Lotteries Be Better Than Grant Applications?

Two scientists have used economic theory to suggest that the current system of awarding federal research grants is fundamentally broken. The scientists argue in an article in PLOS Biology that the rates at which scientists win grants from federal science agencies is now so low that it may no longer make economic sense for scholars to put in the effort to write the best possible application. They argue that a better system might be a lottery of all applications that make it over a certain bar. This would relieve some of the pressure on scientists to focus on grant writing. They article also endorses the contest approach, where a grant goes to a team that achieves a certain breakthrough. The authors are Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, and Kevin Gross, a professor of statistics at North Carolina State University.