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COVID 'Fast Grants' sped up pandemic science - Nature.com

COVID 'Fast Grants' sped up pandemic science - Nature.com

COVID 'Fast Grants' sped up pandemic science - Nature.com
Aug 03, 2021 1 min, 56 secs

They envisaged a research-grant system with an application form that can be completed in less than 30 minutes, a decision-making process that takes just 48 hours, and funding that arrives within a week — and then set up the system in 10 days, using donations from philanthropists.

The scheme, known as Fast Grants, launched in April 2020 and received 4,000 applications in its first week.

Now the trio have released the results of a survey about how the speedy funding benefited scientists’ work in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and how traditional routes of funding may be overly bureaucratic.

The conventional process of securing research funding typically takes more than a year; even fast-track schemes can take months.

They note that in early 2020, they “expected the U.S.’s immense government funding systems to be unleashed, with decisions made in days if not in hours.

In response, they set up Fast Grants, securing more than US$50 million from donors.

According to a survey of 80 of the grant recipients, 67% said their research wouldn’t have been possible without a fast grant, and about a third said it accelerated their work by months.

The data shows that “our current grant system is too slow, too restrictive and inflexible”, says Cowen, who is also the director of Fast Grants.

But one important question to be answered is whether the Fast Grants projects “generate results that are as high in quality and impact as more traditional streams”, he says.

The speed of the Fast Grants application and approval process was possible thanks to an innovative review system.

At least three reviewers read each application, and funding was awarded if one or two reviewers, at least, thought it was very worthy of funding.

Normally, grant applications pass through the hands of tens of reviewers.

More than 55% of those who replied to the Fast Grants survey said they spent more than one-quarter of their working hours putting together grant applications, highlighting how conventional mechanisms are a huge drain on researchers’ time (see ‘Poor use of time’).

When asked how having unconstrained, permanent funding would affect their science, almost 80% of respondents said it would change their research programme a lot (see ‘Funding restraints’)

Donna Ginther, an economist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, says that governmental funding routes are time-consuming and cautious because taxpayers’ money is being spent

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