When the astronomer Tycho Brahe gifted his book Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica (1598) to the Republic of Venice, he strongly hoped that it would move the city to write out a decree supporting his travels for astronomical observations. Tycho had left his motherland Denmark after the new ruler Christian IV withdrew his patronage of the research institute of Uraniborg where Tycho had worked, and he was looking for new support. Even though the city of Venice did not grant his wishes, Tycho was soon appointed as the imperial court astronomer of the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II. Tycho found that the imperial recognition provided legitimacy to his scientific findings. Rudolph II benefitted from this relationship as well: Tycho was the primus inter pares of the astronomers and his authority reflected positively upon the Emperor whose position on the throne was uncertain. Tycho also added precious astronomical instruments to the Emperor’s cabinet of curiosities. In short, astronomy advanced partly because of mutually beneficial relationships between scholars and rulers who used each other to foster their legitimacy.[1]
Today, academic researchers are not dependent on their personal wealth or an affluent aristocrat to fund their work. However, science still partly advances because of mutually beneficial relationships. Based on the idea that science benefits society, citizens pay for the researcher’s grants: taxpayers, consumers, and philanthropists support scientific work directly and indirectly. Researchers still have to navigate a complicated field of political, economic, and social interests to receive financial support, mainly by writing grants. And research still largely depends on the outcome of these grant applications. When multiple attempts for funding fail, the project is often put aside and the story is over and done with. The Journal of Trial and Error wants to change that by asking to do something quite bold: publish your failed grant applications.
Failure in science from A to Z
Often grant applications come to nothing because of a highly competitive system rather than a deficient proposal. Report after report shows that there are simply too many great grant applications and not enough money to fund them.[2] This has led some researchers to abandon applying for federal grants altogether. A study of American universities shows that an acceptance rate of 20% leads half of the academic researchers to simply do the research without funding.[3] In this regard, we were delighted to read Christiaan Engberts’ blogpost on “The Forgotten Nooks and Crannies of Scholarship”, in which he responded to our manifesto of Trial and Error and discussed the blind spots of the current scientific publishing industry. He expressed his support for how our journal shines a light on the messiness that precedes a final publication and proposes to also pay attention to the high amount of wasted potential of (young) researchers. Indeed, countless pages of research plans are likely kept somewhere on scientists’ and scholars’ computers after they have been rejected.
Our journal’s mission is to rethink what failure means in science. ‘Failure’ includes the negative results after experiments and analyses have taken place, but also failed funding attempts before the research process has even started. We wish to promote openness about science in the making and this includes looking at the very beginning when a research proposal is created in a quest to find funding. We hope to contribute to a more transparent and communal scientific enterprise. But why would you share (a part of) your failed grant application?
A useful storage space for grant applications
We consider grant applications as pieces of research: they are overviews of the state of the field in which the author(s) has/have identified a gap in knowledge. They offer a solution to fill this gap and thus, in themselves, already add value. Grant applications should therefore be valued as something that can be published and referred to instead of staying hidden. They can play a role in scholarship if they are searchable in a journal that collects them. If you as a researcher have a proposal that you do not intend to re-use, this is a good way to still add value to the scientific field.
In reality, grant applications are often rewritten and resubmitted and, eventually, lead to successful funding. In this case, an earlier version can be published and used to analyse why a particular kind of research was denied funding at a certain moment and supported at another time. Proposals turn into data to study the history of trends and biases in the process of awarding grants. It might turn out that certain ideas have flourished by incorporating a new field of research or even an entirely different discipline. Indeed, after shining a light on what is actually happening before experiments and analyses start, it will be possible to consider the underlying issues of scientific progress.
Beyond telling us something about past decisions in the progress of science, a collection of rejected grant applications could help shape the future of science. This metadata collection will keep us from losing valuable avenues of research by safekeeping ideas with an author to refer to. ‘Important ideas have long incubation periods,’ states popular science writer Steven Johnson. This means that ideas often come into being over a long time where the innovator slowly finds missing pieces and formulates and reformulates known concepts from new perspectives.[4] Different known elements ultimately form something new. Therefore, it is important to create space, literally and figuratively, for this process to happen.
This is why we hope that a repository of ideas could steer us to new research projects. Publishing rejected applications then serves a function parallel to that of conferences. Both offer the possibility to share budding research to get feedback from the community and work together on an article or volume; they can be community-building exercises that promote new connections. But first and foremost, a repository is needed to not let research pathways die out needlessly as well as to give insight into the progression of these research decisions. Hopefully, reflecting on grant applications will also help us ponder the interactions we have and want to have in the scientific community. One such thought is that academics are not only dependent on funding but also on each other.
Whether you have dozens of forsaken rejected grant applications or one that you still believe has potential, we want you to contact us. What we want to publish is a short abstract, the funding body, and request. This can, but does not have to, be followed by some longer excerpts from the grant application that you wish to bring attention to. Submit your rejected grant application via this form here on our website.
[1] Gabor Almasi, ‘Was Astronomy the Science of Empires? An Eighteenth-Century Debate in View of the Cases of Tycho and Galileo,’ in Negotiating Knowledge in Early Modern Empires: A Decentered View, ed. L. Kontler et al. (Basingstoke-New York: Springer, 2014), 25–51.
[2] Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Evenwicht in het wetenschapssysteem: De verhouding tussen ongebonden en strategisch onderzoek (KNAW: 2019), 9: https://www.knaw.nl/nl/actueel/publicaties/evenwicht-in-het-wetenschapssysteem
Fonds wetenschappelijk onderzoek Vlaanderen, Beleidsplan 2019-2023, (FWO: 2019), 8: https://www.fwo.be/media/1023695/beleidsplan-20192023.pdf
[3] Ted von Hippel and Courtney von Hippel, “To Apply or Not to Apply: A Survey Analysis of Grant Writing Costs and Benefits,” PLoS One 10, n° 3 (2015): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4349454/
[4] “Where Do Good Ideas Come From?,” NPR, consulted on 28.03.2020, https://www.npr.org/2014/06/27/322920914/where-do-good-ideas-come-from?t=1585411726079
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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tycho_Brahe#/media/File:Alfons_Mucha_Rudolf_II_besucht_Tycho_Brahe.jpg
