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Comment by laretluval | Hacker News Reader

> stop rewarding "I wrote the grant" With authorships.

How could this work? If you have more grant money you have more resources to write papers.

Many faculty getting the most funding are never involved in writing the papers attributed to them. (Source: years spent at the top five universities and my own faculty experience)

Would work simply: fund students directly. If faculty contribute training or ideas students can grant authorship. Faculty/postdocs still peer review papers.

I really like this idea of funding students directly, I feel like it’s pretty well aligned with e.g. the NSF’s mission wrt workforce development, and it reduces the power imbalance for students who find themselves in a toxic group environment

I guess there’s still a need for bigger grants because some labs cost more than others to run, but those grants could cover the cost of equipment and materials without having to directly cover student salaries.

Yeah. I think simply making faculty apply for infrastructure and only funding students and no faculty time is the right way to go. Unfortunately this is the opposite of the way that the NSF is being propelled (since panels are dominated by 'eminent scientists' ~= well connected old lazy scientists)

> If faculty contribute training or ideas students can grant authorship.

I don't know a particularly good way to get around this issue and still reward faculty for collaboration with students, but, in this situation, faculty are just going to pressure students to 'recognise' their (the faculty's) contributions with an authorship—say, by threatening to withhold a recommendation letter.

That threat is always there, these changes would only put more power into student's hands.

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