"A concept known as the Szilard point helps to contextualize the issues arising from excessive competition for grants. Named after the Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard, who wrote a short story [1] satirizing the bureaucratic nature of scientific funding, this metric describes the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding. These costs are incurred by scientists in writing proposals, by their peers in reviewing them and by the administrative systems that run the process. The question is, which costs more: the research being funded, or the application process itself?"
web.archive.org/web/2026011508…
[1] gipsa-lab.grenoble-inp.fr/~pie…
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Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.Schweiger, Gerald
Albert Cardona
in reply to Albert Cardona • • •2/2
An example: some years ago, a friend, easily 40 years older than me, told me the following story. With a role as treasurer of the Erasmus program that organises and, critically, funds undergraduate exchanges between universities in Europe, upon running the numbers, realised the following: that the stipendiary, travelling, and hotel expenses of the committee members equalled or slightly surpassed the entirety of the funds allocated to the students themselves for the year. Many uhms and ahs were raised, yet, the next year no invitation arrived to continue as treasurer ...
#academia