Figure out a way to break translational research out of the academic science model at scale! There is currently a huge decoupling of supply and demand in academia, especially in life sciences which is my home domain. Incredibly talented individuals are forced to invest 6-14 years building the credentials necessary to apply for grant funding / self-sufficiency, all the while (at best) earning what a new grad would make if they became a tech in pharma straight out of college. Most people cycle out before hitting their prime, at the expense of our economy.
This decoupling between supply and demand has also motivated other negative trends, such as changes in employment incentives for labs (large push for postdocs / foreign students at the expense of grad students); increasing importance of publishing in high impact, for profit journals (more paywalling of knowledge); sabotage of the peer review process; and a deliberate siloing of what should be public knowledge to prevent "competition" (among other things).
Ultimately I see most basic science being performed in an institute model existing in parallel to academia. In such a model, investigators should own their own ip, would have their salaries uncapped, and would be able to employ qualified people at a fair market wage. In my eyes, the biggest barrier to enacting such a model is startup capital. Most universities give new faculty members a "startup package"; essentially an angel investment to allow them to buy equipment / reagents and pay salaries before they need to support themselves off of grant funding. A new institute would not have the capital required to support this (unless it received extensive funding from foundations / industry / NIH etc).
I envision crowd funded startup packages with caveats. One potential model could mimic angel investment / old school patronage: an investigator receives $X in exchange for a percentage ownership of whatever IP they create within Y years, distributed among the investors. Another model could mimic kickstarter: people crowd fund an investigator with small investments and are rewarded by being part of the process. They are given regular updates, walked through experiments / data, invited to the lab if they are local to see work being done etc. I'm sure other funding mechanisms exist that I have not considered. I would love to chat further about this issue if you are interested; please feel free to contact me.
This decoupling between supply and demand has also motivated other negative trends, such as changes in employment incentives for labs (large push for postdocs / foreign students at the expense of grad students); increasing importance of publishing in high impact, for profit journals (more paywalling of knowledge); sabotage of the peer review process; and a deliberate siloing of what should be public knowledge to prevent "competition" (among other things).
Ultimately I see most basic science being performed in an institute model existing in parallel to academia. In such a model, investigators should own their own ip, would have their salaries uncapped, and would be able to employ qualified people at a fair market wage. In my eyes, the biggest barrier to enacting such a model is startup capital. Most universities give new faculty members a "startup package"; essentially an angel investment to allow them to buy equipment / reagents and pay salaries before they need to support themselves off of grant funding. A new institute would not have the capital required to support this (unless it received extensive funding from foundations / industry / NIH etc).
I envision crowd funded startup packages with caveats. One potential model could mimic angel investment / old school patronage: an investigator receives $X in exchange for a percentage ownership of whatever IP they create within Y years, distributed among the investors. Another model could mimic kickstarter: people crowd fund an investigator with small investments and are rewarded by being part of the process. They are given regular updates, walked through experiments / data, invited to the lab if they are local to see work being done etc. I'm sure other funding mechanisms exist that I have not considered. I would love to chat further about this issue if you are interested; please feel free to contact me.