The ‘Publish’ or ‘Perish’ Pressure of Research

The Funding Flaws of Research

By Tahlia, B Sci (Hons), University of Melbourne

The pressure that so many researchers feel to secure competitive grant funding is distracting them from their real job. Whilst the overall aim of most research is uncovering the scientific secrets that are yet unknown to us, an intricately entangled goal is to secure funding that will enable researchers to do this.

In most cases, researchers need to secure funding for their projects through competitive and complex grant applications. The arduous task of securing funding for a research project involves many hours of work, compiling detailed experimental plans, preliminary results, excruciatingly comprehensive budgets, and so on. Understandably, funding bodies need to know what money is being asked for and why. The limited funding available needs to be allocated to projects that are likely to lead to novel and translational results, but the process itself is tedious and time consuming. I feel that this can be a huge distraction from the actual research that could be done in this time. I have seen talented researchers spending weeks at their desks writing grant applications, spending countless hours trying to perfect their applications in order to give themselves the best chance at securing an elusive grant. I can’t help but feel that the time they are spending on this is a waste of their talent, when I know how much they are capable of when they are actually at the bench doing experiments.

The pressure on researchers to secure funding is immense and seems to be increasing every year. Funding applications are not only a hugely time consuming activity for researchers, but are also often unsuccessful. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is an Australian Government funding agency for research, which supplies a large proportion of funding to researchers. But less than 15% of applications to the NHMRC are successful each year. That leaves the unsuccessful applicants to apply to other funding bodies, forcing them to spend more of their time putting together applications than actually focussing on their research.

One important way in which the quality of research is judged (and therefore considered for funding) is on publications produced. Funding agencies use publications in peer-reviewed journals to look at the track record of the researchers and the proposed projects. This fiercely competitive environment for research funding is leading to a ‘publish or perish’ pressure being felt by many researchers- the feeling that a researcher needs publications to secure funding and therefore secure their career in research (at least for the life of that grant). I feel that the danger in this is that the priority of research can then get pushed towards publications and what journals want, rather than focussing on what may be the best idea to explore. I believe that researchers still care about what implications their work can have to gain further understanding and help patients, but the current flaws in research funding give rise to other motivations as well.

Unfortunately, there are also very rare examples of researchers that have falsified data in order to help secure publications and funding. This is a rare occurrence, but it does highlight the immense pressure that researchers feel to secure funding. Aside from the clear ethical issue here, this also leads to further wasted time and money.

As a young researcher myself, I think that funding is a major hurdle that needs to be overcome in the field. Funding can make or break a research career- either being unable to secure funding for your job or not wanting to pursue a career in research due to the pressure and instability of funding issues. I believe that the time-consuming application process and competitive pressure for research funding opportunities needs to change. I’m sorry to say that I do not have all the answers and I do not know what the best approach to research funding looks like. Maybe it’s a streamlined, single application process? Maybe it’s greater funding availability? Whatever the answer is, I do believe that this is a flawed funding process and that the attached publish or perish pressure needs to change. This change will enable researchers to focus on what they are really there for- ground breaking research to uncover novel information, and discovering new ways to improve patient outcomes and the lives of so many people.