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Comment by Lewisham | Hacker News Reader

Given the furore that occurs whenever a Kickstarter doesn't actually produce the product that people had backed (and mistakenly read as "pre-ordered"), I can't imagine the fuss that will come from funding academic research.

My own research has often diverged down a path that I thought more interesting, dead-ended quickly from what I thought I should do, or turned out to either be trivial if done 80% of the way, or impossible taken 100% of the way, so I couldn't publish it.

I'm sure if I had a crowd behind me, it would have turned into a rabble very quickly. I would not have liked it.

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True, but most funding mechanisms, short of no-strings-attached corporate gifts, have some rabble chasing you around, who may get angry in various ways if it doesn't pan out as they had thought they were led to believe. I'd rather have people on the internet disappointed that my research changed direction, than a DARPA program officer on the phone demanding an explanation for missing deliverables...

Although it may not be this way on paper, most academic funding agencies realize that the exact details of the research are likely to change. Usually as long as the general direction of research (e.g., solving problem X), they are ok with it. There's rarely deliverables, as far as I've seen. Though it is true that sometimes the defense agencies want something more concrete.

In a variety of government-funded computer science projects, I've seen everything on the spectrum from "here's some cash, tell us what you do with it" to extremely detailed, measurable deliverables with heavily negotiated deadlines. Some agencies appear to lean one way or the other, and it also seems to depend on the amount of funding. In my experience, more cash means more planning up front and more oversight. No big surprise there.

I think this is different in the sense that there is no physical item with a delivery expected.

Your false-starts bring up a good point. There should be a stated backup plan for failed studies--like giving the money to research project X, or returning it to donors. An honorable way to end the research, with a reputation system could be a great thing.

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