The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has conducted research into government grant funding mechanisms in the medical and health fields of research, finding that the selection of research projects is significantly affected by chance.

 

Professor Nicholas Graves of QUT's Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI) has found high cost and randomness are features of the current funding system, which is based on a peer review process. 

 

"The key problem is that the current process is overloaded with information and a reliable ranking based on peer review is difficult to achieve," Professor Graves said. "The quality of peer review is known to be variable at the best of times.

 

"The composition of peer review committees themselves is somewhat arbitrary, depending upon who has been invited to take part and who is available. This affects funding decisions because the personalities, preferences and knowledge of committee members will vary."

 

Professor Graves said the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) committed $754 million to health and medical grants in 2009 and he based his research on 2705 of the 2983 project grant proposals received that year.

 

"We found 'chance' played a role in funding decisions yet at the same time these decisions have a huge impact on the careers of academics," he said.

 

"The current funding process is also costly and time consuming to participate in. In many cases in order to get funded an applicant will have to write a really good proposal and be lucky."