{"id":1626,"date":"2008-03-01T00:16:50","date_gmt":"2008-03-01T00:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/03\/01\/the_great_canadian_research_funding_conspiracy_theory\/"},"modified":"2008-03-01T00:16:50","modified_gmt":"2008-03-01T00:16:50","slug":"the_great_canadian_research_funding_conspiracy_theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/03\/01\/the_great_canadian_research_funding_conspiracy_theory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Canadian Research Funding Conspiracy Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, that was one crazy week. I was involved in a grand total of 8 grants, 5 of which had a February 29th deadline (specialised Provincial programme) with the remaining 3 due on March 3rd (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.researchnet-recherchenet.ca\/rnr16\/viewOpportunityDetails.do?prog=200&#038;&#038;view=currentOpps&#038;org=CIHR&#038;type=AND&#038;resultCount=25&#038;sort=program&#038;all=1&#038;masterList=true\">CIHR operating grants<\/a> &#8211; the Big One in Canadian science, more or less equivalent to an NIH R01). My role ranged from that of co-applicant, writing most of the proposal, to supplier of specific blocks of text, to proof-reader and CV formatter. And man am I glad this week is over!<br \/>\nNow why would these big deadlines cluster together in this way? My exhausted and over-caffeinated brain has come up with the following explanation:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Canada does not have a large population and has limited funds available to support scientific research. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The big funding bodies therefore set their deadlines within a day or two of each other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>This limits the number of applications that can feasibly be submitted by one PI, thus spreading the available funds more evenly around the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then, of course, big institutions start to hire people like me, whose goal is to help a group of PIs submit more applications than would usually be possible without someone having a meltdown.<br \/>\nHa ha, take that, Canadian funding bodies. And will someone please take me out for a drink now? I think I&#8217;ve earned it this week&#8230;<br \/>\np.s. the above is intended to be humorous. Canadian Government, if you&#8217;re reading this, I&#8217;m only joking! Please approve my upcoming Citizenship application. Thanks.<br \/>\np.p.s. don&#8217;t even get me started on why the CV format requirements are different for every single competition.<br \/>\np.p.p.s. <a href=\"http:\/\/genomicron.blogspot.com\/2008\/02\/nature-on-plight-of-canadian-science.html\">T Ryan Gregory<\/a> has written a beautiful post condemning the current government&#8217;s policies, which he feels are threatening the current egalitarian mode of Canadian research funding. He&#8217;s already a citizen so he can criticise with impunity! And I bet he didn&#8217;t submit 8 grants today \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, that was one crazy week. I was involved in a grand total of 8 grants, 5 of which had a February 29th deadline (specialised Provincial programme) with the remaining 3 due on March 3rd (CIHR operating grants &#8211; the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/03\/01\/the_great_canadian_research_funding_conspiracy_theory\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}