On research grants

A friend, Jim Rogers of Texas A&M, sent along a rejoinder to my post summarizing Rosenstock-Huessy’s views on grant-supported research. He points out that grant support in science and social science is not intended to provide revolutionary break-throughs, but to support the empirical research necessary to confirm or deny theory-driven hypotheses. Non-empirical theorists seek grants to gain time for developing and writing up their theories. He suggests an analogy with Kuhn’s idea of scientific revolutions: Grants support, and know they are supporting, “normal science,” but that work is as necessary as innovative theoretical work.

Speaking as a provider as well as recipient of grants, Jim argues that grants fund good research and that because of this funding we know things that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. He’s not arguing that the benefits of government-sponsored research exceeds the costs; more modestly, he suggests that the “marginal benefit is greater than zero.”