Sir

When considering the funding problems causing labs to close (Nature 457, 650–655; 2009), an economic argument can be made that growth depends on the creation of new markets being opened up by new technology. Personalized medicine provides an example of this, as do advances in medical instrumentation such as magnetic resonance imaging and laser eye surgery.

Balancing the need for increased spending to further economic growth with the need to spend more effectively during this economic downturn means that we must improve our ability to decide what research is worth funding. Simply lowering the percentage of funded grants won't cause this to happen by itself.

Effective spending depends on detailed peer review to assess applications properly. But the review quality necessary may be hard to realize in practice, because there is more and more research to review. The traditional rankings devised from impact factors don't take this kind of work into consideration — rather, they promote more writing, creating more work for reviewers. A better system would properly credit people for their review and assessment work so that money could be spent more effectively.

See also: Diversity of funding sources and topics is key to survival  Grant-writing offices would let scientists get on with research  Backlogged system in Australia shuts out new investigators