CAREER: Incentives, Diversity, and Scientific Problem Choice

职业：激励、多样性和科学问题选择

• 批准号: 1254291
• 负责人: Kevin Zollman
• 金额: $ 40.55万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-07-01 至 2019-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1254291&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Incentives; Diversity; Scientific; Problem

IntroductionThis CAREER award supports research to develop a more unified theory of scientific incentives using a broadly economic methodology. The educational and training aspects of the project includes a number of activities such as course development, a summer school for undergraduates, and mentoring of graduate students. Intellectual MeritUtilizing economic modeling and computer simulation, this project aims to understand how incentives typically faced by scientists (to secure funding, get promoted, publish papers, etc.) facilitate or harm the advancement of science. Policymakers, science commentators, and scientists themselves have begun to worry that such incentives encourage scientists to engage in behaviors that would be counterproductive to science as a whole such as choosing projects that will not significantly advance knowledge, or misrepresenting or even fabricating their findings. Rather than focusing on single case studies, which can sometimes be misleading, this project aims to uncover the underlying relationships between the incentives faced by scientists and their ultimate behavior. The results from the project will help to uncover whether there is reason to worried about the state of contemporary science. Where the incentives are misaligned, the investigators will attempt to suggest alternative methods.Potential Broader ImpactsThe results from this project could eventually help to guide science policymakers in understanding how to create a reward system for science that will make the enterprise of science most efficient. They may serve to suggest recommendations that would make more efficient use of public money by enhancing the rate and reliability of scientific discoveries. The project also includes a number of pedagogical activities such as a freshman seminar, a philosophy of economics course, materials for a summer school course in mathematical modeling for philosophers, and improved dissemination of materials for an undergraduate summer school course in logic and formal epistemology. This sort of work is well suited to getting students involved at a fairly high level in fairly short order.

引言这一职业奖支持研究，以使用广泛的经济学方法来开发更统一的科学激励理论。该项目的教育和培训方面包括许多活动，例如课程开发，一所暑期学校的本科生以及研究生的指导。智力化的经济建模和计算机模拟，该项目旨在了解科学家通常面临的激励措施（以确保资金，促进，发表论文等）如何促进或损害科学的进步。 政策制定者，科学评论员和科学家本身已经开始担心，这种激励措施鼓励科学家从事与整个科学相反的行为，例如选择不会显着提高知识或虚假陈述甚至捏造其发现的项目。该项目不是专注于有时会产生误导的单个案例研究，而是旨在揭示科学家面临的激励措施与其最终行为之间的基本关系。该项目的结果将有助于发现是否有理由担心当代科学的状况。如果激励措施未对准，调查人员将尝试提出替代方法。广泛影响该项目的结果最终可能有助于指导科学决策者理解如何为科学创建奖励系统，从而使科学的企业最有效。他们可能会提出建议，通过提高科学发现的速度和可靠性，可以更有效地利用公共资金。该项目还包括许多教学活动，例如新生研讨会，经济学哲学课程，用于哲学家数学建模的暑期学校课程的材料，以及改善了材料的传播，用于逻辑和正式认识论的本科暑期课程。这种工作非常适合使学生在相当短的时间内以相当高的水平参与其中。