SARAH WILD: Researchers pick crowdfunding route as funds from state dry up
From tracing the history of human disease to early ancestors to monitoring the country’s groundwater, scientists are asking citizens to fund their work
It started with technology innovators looking online to access the deep pockets of venture capitalists. Now scientists are following suit. SA’s researchers, feeling the pinch of fiscal austerity, are turning to the internet to fund their research. Whether it is for tracing the history of human disease back to the early ancestors, monitoring the country’s groundwater, or establishing a new penguin colony, researchers are asking citizens to fund their science. "Why not let people share their stories for the research on the internet, and let the crowd decide?" asks Denny Luan, co-founder of www.experiment.com, a US crowdfunding site specifically for science. "At the same time, [we can] work to connect the public with real, raw, unfiltered science." When Luan was a young scientist, "there were no clear options for us to find funding to conduct research that we knew was important and worthwhile, and that the traditional funding system would deem ‘too risky’ or ‘not valuable’", he says. H...
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