Who Funds Misfit Research?

andyjsong

For those who want a live example:

MakeSunsets has raised ~$1.8M from angels + VCs and another ~$133K in Cooling Credit sales over the past 12 months from individuals [1]. These purchases directly fund stratospheric aerosol injection — bringing awareness and cooling the Earth.

We’ve applied to SBIRs, explored DAOs, crowdfunding platforms, and are in conversations with family offices and UHNWI.

Most of our closed deals? They’ve come from Twitter and Substack. The key: talking directly to decision-makers — not committees.

[1] Climate dads: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0685/0042/2976/files/Make_...

searine

Most 'misfit research' is funded by the government through broad training grants or broad departmental level support. Parts of those grants get used to fund early career researchers and students. Most often it is funding mainstream science but sometimes it is used just to keep these people on board. So it isn't about funding any one weird thing, but instead giving people the freedom to explore ideas and develop skills. Even when supported by specific grants, PI will use that money to let students / fellows explore more broadly.

The idea that VCs or DAOs would give a penny for R&D is a sick joke.

throwawaymaths

definitionally, no:

> work that is a poor fit for academia

searine

Academia is already a sandbox. What kind of research would fit poorly?

In the article most of the examples of funding sources give their funding to academic labs already.

Discussion about non-governmental sources of funding is fine, but they still almost always funnel back into a lab at a university.

jonathanstrange

I've worked more than 15 years as a full-time researcher in a philosophy research institute. At least in my area, I highly doubt that any noteworthy amount of "misfit research" should get funding and is worth pursuing. Research is embedded into and needs to be part of the international research culture where many people and many different institutions work on the same topic. In philosophy, this is and has always been mostly within academia. "misfits" are unfortunately often close to "crackpots." There is a myriad of funding opportunities, some of them rather obscure and based on personal projects with a wide range of application conditions and requirements. For example, I know a colleague who once did research in philosophy for the Volkswagen Stiftung, and another one obtained funding from NATO.

Of course, there is research outside of academia in many more practical disciplines like STEM and medical research. But I doubt the situation is very different there. If you're too much of a "misfit" chances are high that your research proposals just aren't good enough. If you have many publications in top journals, you will get funding.

What's more concerning is that for lack of career prospects and job security, mostly those postdocs seem to prevail who are very adapted to the system and those who are extremely persistent and willing to relocate indefinitely. There is too much talent wasted in the second category. I've seen too many good and talented people drop out of the "publish or perish rat race" because they got children or wanted to settle down. These were the opposite of misfits, though.