The Necessity of Funding Failure
Science • October 2011 • Views: 952
The data was clear: In every biomedical field, the risky HHMI grants were generating the most important, innovative and influential research. Although HHMI researchers had similar qualifications to their NIH counterparts when they first applied for funding, they went on to produce twice as many highly cited research articles and win six times as many awards. They also introduced more new “keywords” into the scientific lexicon, which is a marker of highly original work.