Interesting to note many universities have a policy in place that prohibits self-financing research for reasons such as "Self-funded research can blur the boundary between funder and researcher, and may give rise to concerns regarding appropriate oversight, accountability, and conflict of interest." (From Brown University's Conflict of Interest in Research Policy).
I can see a validity rejecting self-financing on the basis that:
- if you can't find funding for research, then is it worth doing?
- the research theme or topic may have issues around conflicts of interest (e.g. attempting to support certain views that are not scientific, political motivations, etc)
These risks, in my mind are appropriately mitigated for most forms of research areas and that there is no real conflict in one financing their own work. For example, if Bill Gates wanted to fund research on some new undeveloped technology he could hire someone to do this research, or if he was able to, he could do the research himself. I see no issues with either of these scenarios as long as disclosure is clear made in any relevant papers, and there has been an appropriate and independent review process of findings.
Anyone able to elaborate on specific examples that validate of these policies? I feel like getting funding from private sources (like companies) or even public sources from institutions that want to see certain outcomes as more conducive to bad science than one who is willing to say pay for online surveys by themselves because they believe the results are worth investigating.
If researchers are self-motivated to conduct a research study, they will conduct the research study without external funding.
Funders have research areas they are willing to fund, and those they are not interested in funding. They will not fund every research study application due to limited funds.
I really do not believe a University's Research committee will reject staff's self-funded research paper that is published in a top quality journal simply because it was self-financed.
I think the key here is to publish your research in high-impact journals whether or not external funding is available.
The only issue I have with external funding for research is that you have to do research on a topic the funder is interested in, rather than in a topic you know is worth investigating.
All sources of research funding entail potential for bias, including mainstream granting agencies, although this potential varies across sources, industry funding being the most usual example. This duly stated, even industry funding in and of itself itself does not necessarily constitute bias. It is equally fair to state that self-funding may also entail potential for bias, as this is true for all research regardless of financing. I agree with you: there is no real conflict in one financing their own work. Sometimes doing so may be necessary in a given situation, where such considerations as time or geographic setting may be considerations. Besides, some forms of research e.g., hypothesis development, literature reviews, some forms of modeling, secondary analyses, pilot studies, etc., sometimes require very little funding aside from salary support for the researcher. So, to the extent that some institution have a policy that discourages self-financing of research, suggests that they may not not be genuinely open to the very concept of research. A lot of research is driven by the intellectual curiosity and commitment of the researcher, and ultimately subjected to critical review. In my opinion, any rigorous inquiry that advance knowledge and improve practices should be welcomed by any institution that claim to promote research. The important caveat is that sources of support must be acknowledged, and self-financing is no exception. Research can be a fragile endeavour, so it is important not to place unnecessary barriers in its path. Reference: White F. Capacity-building for health research in developing countries: a manager's approach. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2002 Sep;12(3):165-72. doi: 10.1590/s1020-49892002000900004. PMID: 12396634.
Franklin M M White thank you for echoing my thoughts. I think it makes very little sense to prohibit self-financing and should be evaluated on a case by case basis per other forms of financing. Given institutions as prestigious as Brown have listed this as a policy, I am still not sure if I'm missing something or their policies are outdated...
@Peterson K Ozili, I agree with most of your points. The issue is that a lot of universities seem to have policies in place that will prohibit self-funded research at the proposal level (e.g. in Browns case) before it goes to publication at high-impact journals. I'm still not sure if I have missed a legitimate reason for it to be presumptively prohibited.
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