Usually they are too ambitious, in order to get the support. As a rule the final product is not at all ambitious! There are of course exceptions.

Usually they are too ambitious, in order to get the support. As a rule the final product is not at all ambitious! There are of course exceptions.

I think that the results of research in unknown or little known areas can be hardly predicted with high degree of certainty. If I ever get into touch with such projects then they are EU R+D projects which are based on detailed specification.

In a way it is thus possible to predict results, e.g. every engineer with field experience probably tells you that FTTH technology is the most expensive in short run. However the prediction which technology is the best suited to certain country usually requires detailed research starting with demographics and ending with quality of existing copper lines and demand prediction for nearest 30 years.

A general question deserves a general answer. Yes, some projects can be too ambitious. So, while some may say the glass is half full, some would argue it's half empty. Funding agencies (NSF,NIH, NSERC) recognize it and have even a special gradation for such "risky and hard-to-predict projects". This is how science and technology evolves, my skeptical friends! Are we losing money in this way! Absolutely, YES! Are we gaining something valuable as a result of such endeavors? No doubt, YES! Just remember, that science can't be developed as sequence of well calculated risks projects. Sometimes one needs breakthroughs, quantum leaps or just... a good night sleep when you see something remarkable in there...

P.S. I'm sure somebody familiar with EU funding system could give examples of similar high-risk research projects funding.         

Research proposals are in response to a request or unsolicited. The form and approach will differ. The proposer to either is expected to have a command of the subject. Someone with a command of the subject can predict the outcome to a reasonable degree, say within 10%. Further, the proposer can state what constitutes success, say an improvement of 30%, which will result in ... This applies both to applied and pure research (the wording will be different.)

Most funding comes from bureaucracies that are populated by non-scientists (including those with degrees in the field of study). Bureaucracies love big. Those who promise the most with the least detail usually win. Proposals are not too ambitious, they are simply too inflated with vague promises.

It depends on the nature of the proposed research project, dear Marcel!

That is an excellent question since it relates to what is happenning. Most research projects proposed for financial support too ambitious, but still some of them are not ambitious. TheCommittee of Scientific Research in each university can expect if the research project is ambitious or not when discussing the details of the research project.

The proposer should be ambitious, if not he will not go far and get some new results. But unfortunately, some funding agencies ask for detailed proposal that you can not write without having real results, because of that I usually do not apply to a project before checking it and get some positive  results.

I have some "Great" ideas that I fully believe in getting unusual breakthrough results but can not apply for fund because of the complicated "Application Forms".

It is not exactly my area of knowledge, however the first link contains reference to EU research informational portal with description of both accoplished and open research projects. Guidelines on current research programme (Horizon 2020, budget 80 billions EUR) contain some info on that.

Recently I assessed only "PIANO+" project from 2010 (the second link) where initial project resulted in 13 subprojects, which required completely new designs of circuits to make this technology cost comparable with existing GPON technologies. Trial tests started sometime last year in Austria (Arlington).

However, the whole project might be considered as risky, because theres no guarantee that industry accepts it at least for now. Even DAE Agenda requires only 100 Mbps per end user in 2020, another issue if end-users will require speeds of 1 Gbps or above and the full usage of such speeds will probably require update of home terminals for high-powered ones.

http://cordis.europa.eu/home_en.html

http://www.pianoplus.eu/index.html

1) Can high-budget projects (often) be repeated/replicated by others? E.g. Replicated research is one of the fundamental principles in recommended science practice. Imagine: a team that get's huge financial support publishes spectacular findings than can never be verfied by others because the project has been (too) expensive.

2) Data that have been gathered in the framework of financed projects (let say 3 years) might be reexploited in other frameworks many years later. This can happen when new ideas or new science frameworks appear well after the financial support was stopped.

3) Do those that fund high-budget projects verify the long-term consequences or just forget about it once the project has been finished? E.g. Tracking long-term consequences might give ideas about science efficiency. How much has been wasted? Any quantitative data about this?

This is a conservative question. Science spending is often liberal in nature. The major expenditure on science budget is usually on manpower support to investigate a quest in life. The key is the quest and its potential use to mankind keeping in mind national interest to some extend. The outcome is not only the finding, discovery, design or observation it also goes with human resource development in the area of specialization in addition to literature creation which is expected to be critical, concise, coherent, precise and specific. Therefore, the quality of literature depends heavily on manpower spending in the continuum.   

Dear James/dear ALL,

I know commissions that have to handle quite different topics even within a given research field (pers. obs.). Extensive experience is a relative concept in this framework. I think it is practically impossible that these commisions truly know the published literature involving all the topics they have to judge. How can you judge the level of ambition of a project when you do not truly master the published research which is evolving fast?

Dear James,

I think the most interesting over-ambitious aspects are related to the ideas/hypotheses that are proposed, not the methodologies proposed to be applied. Perhaps some methods are simply inadequate to test ideas/hypotheses, whatever the sample sizes and logistic support used. 

Overambitious ideas/hypotheses are those that simply cannot be tested with the methods available or proposed.

My answer is no difference. I cite CERN experiments, Brain and DNA projects all are ambitious ones and going over and over or for years. I am unable presently to cite the reference a scientists wrote a book in which he claimed that claims of finding Higgs Boson particle is simply to get more funds and no such discovery is made.

Dear Mohammad,

perhaps a book that criticizes very expensive projects would not have been accepted by an editor under political pressure or not?

By the way, there are interesting stories about waste of huge amounts of money in a book like the one of Pedro G. Ferreira. 2014. The Perfect Theory. A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity (I have a Dutch translation). E.g. projects trying to identify gravity waves predicted by theory that cost billions (LIGO, Advanced LIGO, LISA). Even if nothing is found, it might be useful in other frameworks.....

Cheers

Dear Marcel,

I don't state a thing until I am confident. However, you are right in that the book is copyrighted material and published by the author. Title of the book, its author and Amazon link is given below:

The Higgs Fake: How Particle Physicists Fooled the Nobel Committee Paperback – October 9, 2013

By Alexander Unzicker

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1492176249/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

"Something that was previously thought to be impossible.

A man who was completely paralysed from the waist down can walk again after a British-funded surgical breakthrough which offers hope to millions of people who are disabled by spinal cord injuries.

Polish surgeons used nerve-supporting cells from the nose of Darek Fidyka, a Bulgarian man who was injured four years ago, to provide pathways along which the broken tissue was able to grow."

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/21/paralysed-darek-fidyka-pioneering-surgery?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

This discussion reminds me of few words, (1) small money, (2) big money, (3) Scientist, (4) Scientist cum manager; (5) Manager; (6) Connection; (7) Need; (8) Visibility; (9) creativity. These words attract funding in different scales in different layers in different systems. The idea of having seed funding at academia is to encourage young scientist with some creativity and less connection. So, you build your connection over the years to have an in-depth study on the narrow field of interest. This connection attracts big money at some point in your career if destined. However, it should be noted that small money is as good as big money for story telling if not for product selling. There is justice and beauty with every decision at every node within a specified time period.

Yes, usually they are too ambitious to get funded. The worst thing, however, is that a big portion of the work done within such an ambitious project is not published for several reasons... 

Dear Marcel,

This is exactly the problem I meant: The ambitious projects set high demands for many publications and researchers may not have the time to write, it is not an issue of quality. Sometimes, there may be large not completely used sets of data because the time for the next ambitious proposal comes... Of course, there are always exceptions and depends on the field, as well.

The problem of over-ambitious applications for external funding is also at the contracting authorities who want maximum performance for little money. Such clients often lack the expertise to assess the actual expenditure (time and knowledge) and resulting costs realistic. Final decisions are often made by commercial staff with financial guidelines and they bluntly look at the price and choose the cheapest tenderer. The bidder then in turn runs into self-exploitation or delivers poor results. When it then comes to additional remedies (rework), a project can become a financial fiasco.

Who can say that a research project is too ambitious? If a research project is well conceived, well documented and really innovative, i.e. beyond the level of knowledge of experts designated to report on it, who can really appreciate that it will be a failure? A project can be judged as insufficienly innovative, or irrelevant, or whatever you want... But, by definition, no project can be seen as too ambitious. If it is judged too ambitious, it is probably that the so-called experts who judge it are incompetent, jealous, or dishonest, or all that together!

Does this imply we do not need so-called experts anymore and that projects are elected via a lottery game? Why not?

The term "over-ambitious" is always relative to the given recources.

Relative, not in respect to the content (ideas, methods) but in terms of financial (technical, physical) funding for which the researchers apply with their project. If the available total is roughly known (eg in the EU funding), the problem is on the researcher / applicant, when they calculate wrong and therefore, f.e. be rightly rejected in peer review.

If we have an economical/competitive oriented allocation system (I aimed on this in my post above) things are much harder, because there are usually ambitious demands by the client, which then will have to be achieved for the lowest budget by the researcher/contractor. Corresponding contracts here often include substantive additional claims (rework) and also allow the client to pay at final acceptance of the project.

Many countries are focusing on quality research and they are expending millions of dollars on it. In light of the increased competition among the researchers they are trying to get the project funded that's why their projects are highly ambitious and optimistic and sometimes comprise non-realistic objectives.

There are several reasons why research based on project proposals for grants will usually be (over)ambitious. It's part of the game. However, fortunately, there is a lot of important and relevant research that is conducted in a more serious or let's say more modest way, without being plagued with strict financial and time budgets. Also, financially supported projects may pick and choose research topics and questions which are currently en vogue. However, we also need research which is clearly embedded within longer traditions or far-reaching innovative goals. This can't usually be done by means of short-term, fixed-objectives projects where there is no place for serendipity and a lot of creativity. That's what I observed and learned over many years / decades in several (international) projects. My tentative explanation: the idea of running scientific research on (such type of) projects is based on a fallacy, that progress in science (whatsoever) can be srtrictly planned and conducted.

To Marcel:

Of course your suggestion is a joke, even though the lottery game you are evoking might sometimes be fairer than the present system, at least in EU funding where experts are always chosen within the "CLUB", as it is called by some of its own members.

To illustrate this, I will cite the case of a project file given to an "expert" at about 10 p.m. with the demand to give back his report at 7:30 before breakfast the morning after, and with an evaluation mark not below 37.5/40! (I swear it is true...) In contrast, I have known in the course of my professional life many examples of such applications outside continental Europe which were, say, totally "open", apparently at least.

Funding agencies do not make mistakes, by definition. They are prone to accept bloated, ill-defined claims for low cost. The proposers claimed experience and resources justifies the low cost. Low cost may be higher than other proposers, but the bloated claims make it relatively lower. There is no failure to meet goals, only redefinition that requires follow-on money. Funding agencies do not make mistakes so more money is allotted.

As Guy stated, the CLUB ensures the practice.

Marcel

In answer to your question on page 1.

Can a high-budget projects be replicated? Well-constructed projects have internal replication. Parts are replicated before other phases can begin. Unique devices are tested multiple times and analysis protocols are developed before final testing. No changes are allowed during final testing.

Data is sometimes assiduously protected from other use, sometimes openly available. Loss of financial support often leads to loss of data.

High-budget projects sometimes are not finished, even when everything has been built and tested. Occasionally there are reports of the waste, but not sure how comprehensive. 

Internal replication equals internal validity, not external validity?

@ Joseph L Alvarez ·:-:  Guess you are being ironic-sarcastic for the sake of clarity. Perhaps you are also over-generalizing for same reason. Depends upon the project data base you are considering (sample --> population).

Nonetheless I recognize the pattern(s) you are describing as they are not too seldom seen in the field of software engineering (not on time, not on budget, less functionality, less quality). Alarming reports availbale but sometimes criticized for not being clear as to their methodology.

Questions: Are you mainly talking about

• industrial projects, public projects or governmental agency-supported projects?
• projects of which size?
• with a strong lobby or basically lottery-based?

(assuming all projects are equivalent in quality and relevance

but the totally available budget is severly limited)?

http://www.galorath.com/wp/software-project-failure-costs-billions-better-estimation-planning-can-help.php

Most funders will see through an unrealistic  project,  however if a good systematic review supports the proposal and there is some  evidence of a feasibility/pilot project, it will be more favorably looked at. The other way of dealing with a complex project is to have a  phased project which is costed separately for each component. My experience has been that using this approach, the funder will be able to see if you can achieve your initial outcomes in Phase 1 and will be more likely to promise future funding if Phase 1 outcomes are achieved. Alternatively,  Phase 1 could always be a feasibility study and test a range of outcomes.

I received review reports that consistent of one sentence. How long did it take to read the project to write this sentence compared to the efforts/time invested to write these projects? Unacceptable to me.

@Paul, @Marcel, Large projects whose cost prohibit reproduction require internal reproducibility and external oversight. Really, really big is putting people on the moon. I meant somewhat smaller. Internal replication and project phasing does not ensure a quality result. Industrial projects generally are better controlled than public, government supported projects when industries have to use their own money. Projects with a strong lobby have particular need to find the lobby-supported answer.

Government funding has distorted the proposal process to the point that only a lottery system is possible for grading the proposals.

@Nicola, Funders cannot see through an unrealistic project, because they require unrealistic projects.

Dear Joseph, There is a very need of devising a system which can check  the unrealistic projects, with non-achievable goals, from funding.

@ Nicola Robinson :-: "... the funder will be able to see if you can achieve your initial outcomes in Phase 1 and will be more likely to promise future funding if Phase 1 outcomes are achieved."

Theoretically, yes. In practice the following can happen (and it happened really, I was on such a project): At the beginning of a two-day project demonstration of Phase I, before anything else, the project officer representing the funding agency declared - without batting an eye: "Even if your project has been a success in the first phase, you won't get the second phase funding." Period.

No kidding. You can imagine that the meeting immediately came to a halt, and we deliberated together with our advisory board (experienced research managers), whether it would still make sense to present our good results so far.

Even if you counter that this can always happen when money gets short, I think such things should be handled with more diligence. Researchers aren't tools, you can discard of just so.

Dear Marcel,

In response to my citation of Alexander Unzicker's book, you have remarked that whose religion it is. I don't find this remark of yours in the thread. But, it is not alone Alexander Unzicker whose religion doubts discovery of Higgs Boson. There is very recent paper by a team of scientists which although do not dismiss the discovery entirely, but doubts it and gives 50% probability to the authenticity of discovery. It is in the media:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/11/discovery-of-higgs-boson-hints-at-a-yet-undiscovered-force-of-nnture.html

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/19802/20141108/shocking-cern-may-not-have-discovered-elusive-higgs-boson-particle-after-all.htm

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/higgs-boson-illusive-god-particle-may-not-have-been-discovered-after-all-1473742

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/10/higgs-boson-discovery-particle_n_6133502.html

http://www.sci-news.com/physics/science-techni-higgs-discovery-higgs-boson-02266.html

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2845897/scientists-raise-doubts-over-discovery-of-elusive-god-particle.html

The original research paper is also attached.

Interesting! Question: which elementary natural force has been responsible for proclaiming with certainty that Higgs particle was found, urging the Nobel Comittee to award the Nobel prize for its initial conjecture and recent discovery, whereas other discoveries have to wait decades for recognition?

Very apt question in the field of research. I have seen many project proposals being defended. And I have found many times that the projects had unrealistic objectives just to make it fascinating to get the funding.Otherwise, funding agencies ask what different are you doing? Funding agencies are also responsible for such over-ambitious proects.

Does science make sense when project results indeed can be predicted with certainty?

Thank you!