RES:Public funding of phylogenetic analysis

[Thomas Schlemmermeyer]

Hello dear all,

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De:  Richard Zander
Enviada em:  Quinta-feira, 20 de Novembro de 1997 16:52
Para:  Multiple recipients of list TAXACOM
Assunto:  Public funding of phylogenetic analysis

The U.S. National Science Foundation gives a summary of grants awarded
in various years (http://www.nsf.gov).

For the year 1997 (NSF 1997), about $15 million was awarded in 96 grants
for systematic research. Of these, 55 awards (57%) had the words
phylogeny or cladistic or molecular systematics or some variant in their
title: these grants totalled about $7.5 million, averaging $135,000 per
grant. An additional 16 grants (16%) had the word evolution or a variant
in their title: these grants totalled about $1.5 million, averaging
$97,000 per grant. The 23 remaining systematics research grants (23%)
totalled about $5.3 million, averaging $250,000 per grant; for these,
any emphasis on phylogenetics could not be told from their titles.=20

I didn=B4t evaluate the site you gave, but, by your data, I remarked in
another fact:

The "evolution grants" were smaller, on average, than the "cladistics =
grants"
which were far smaller, on average, than the other systematics grants.

I picked up from a german journal the following information:
biologists, in Germany, use to split their projects and try to get funds =
for
very small projects which contribute, only, very small bits to the =
frontiers of knowledge. The authors proposed a return to the design of =
large projects.

Describing biodiversity, in fact, includes much more work than only =
phylogenetics.
I would vote in favor of large, inclusive projects which may include =
phylogenetic reasoning about the data.