SXC.HU, JOHKABiomedical researchers are grumbling a lot these days. The worries span funding levels at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the peer review process, academic promotion policies, the effectiveness of conferences, waste caused by scientific error, regulatory burdens, and so on. However the grumbling won’t amount to much unless there is a systematic way to formulate, analyze, implement, and monitor reforms to the systems and institutions that make conducting research possible. To do this, the community should develop a new academic tradition of analyzing the biomedical research enterprise. A 21st century ability to apply research data to medical advances will require a 21st century understanding of how to organize biomedical research.
The core impediment to the adoption of this approach is that biomedical research is rarely treated as a product of organizational structure, culture, and incentives. Many scientists see “curiosity” or other lofty ideals as the primary drivers of the research process. They view administration as simply the cost of doing business, failing to recognize that it actually influences (for good and bad) the goals and directions of research. The result is the absence of a tradition for measuring and analyzing organizational performance.
The NIH system for grant funding is a prime example of a process that has come in for strong criticism. Many argue that scientists tailor proposals to win grants rather than to describe the most innovative, boldest, or best approaches for solving society’s ...
