Use a lottery for the final pick among research grant applications that pass a quality bar
Steps to make it happen
- Researchers send in a plan that says what research they want to do.
- Experts read each plan and check that it is solid.
- Schools of experts pick the very best plans right away and turn down the ones that fall short.
- Funders then draw lots to choose from the remaining plans that are good enough.
- Funders make the lottery method and results public so anyone can check them.
- Plans that lose the draw can enter again in the next round.
- Researchers spend less time writing plans and judging them, so they have more time for research.
- Money reaches new ideas and young researchers as a matter of course.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal adds a partial lottery to research grants that public funds or public-interest foundations give out by competition, mainly small and medium-sized grants. Review is split into three stages. First, expert reviewers check basic standards: whether the plan is logical, whether the team can carry it out, and whether it has any ethical problems. Next, a small number of plans that reviewers clearly agree are especially strong are chosen right away, and plans that do not reach the basic standard are rejected. For the plans left in the middle, all judged worthy of support, no ranking by small differences in score is made, and the lottery decides which are chosen. The method for making the random numbers and the procedure are published in advance, the draw is held with outside witnesses, and anyone can check the result afterward. Applicants are told at which stage their plan was decided, and a plan that loses the draw can be kept automatically for the next lottery if the applicant wants. If a funding body adjusts the odds, for example to help people who have only just started doing research, it must publish the reason and the method. On the other hand, projects that need careful comparison of which plan is better are left out of the lottery, such as building large research facilities, clinical trials that directly affect people's safety, and research that responds to a specific urgent problem.
BenefitsLess bias in review, and more time for research
The big advantage of this system is that it reduces the effect of bias, which is hard to avoid in review. If the final decision among good-enough plans is left to a lottery, things like fame, affiliation, and whether a topic is fashionable are less likely to sway the result. Chances to be chosen widen for new ideas that were hard to appreciate before, for young researchers with little track record, and for researchers in regions with little funding. Reviewers are also freed from the hard work of ranking tiny differences and can focus on checking whether a plan meets the basic standard. That cuts the effort and time of review, and researchers also carry less of the burden of polishing their plans in fine detail, so they can spend time on the research itself. Knowing that a lottery decided the result also makes it less likely that people who lose feel their ability was rejected, and it is thought to weaken the urge to exaggerate results just to stand out. When the people who choose honestly admit the limits of their judgment, trust in the review itself may also grow.
DrawbacksCritics say leaving public money to luck is giving up responsibility
The strongest concern from opponents is whether it is right to decide in the end by luck where public money, such as tax money, goes. Funders have a responsibility to pick out the research most likely to produce results, and critics say a lottery throws that responsibility away. When explaining to the public, funders also can no longer show by the content why this research was chosen. In addition, it is still people who decide the line between the especially strong plans and the plans that enter the lottery, so feelings of unfairness and disputes over where that line is drawn remain. A truly excellent study might lose by chance and a valuable opportunity could be lost. If researchers try to raise their odds of winning by sending in large numbers of lower-quality applications, the review burden could actually grow. Where winning a grant counts toward performance reviews or promotion, a new problem arises over how to judge a result decided by luck. Some also point out that the lottery could hide the basic problem that the total amount of research money is simply not enough.
Learn the background
In many parts of the world, the number of researchers is growing, but the research money handed out by competition has not grown as much, so the share of applications that are accepted keeps falling. Researchers spend a lot of time writing plans, and reviewers carry the burden of reading huge numbers of applications. It has also long been pointed out that when different reviewers read the same plan, their ratings can differ greatly. The gaps between the top plans are very small, and ranking them in fine detail may in practice mean that results are decided by something close to chance. In addition, researchers with a track record, famous institutions, and well-established topics tend to have the advantage, while bold ideas with uncertain outcomes and challenges by young researchers are easily turned away. If a cycle continues in which people who receive funding build up more achievements and win the next grant more easily, the variety of the research world could be lost. How to balance fairness and efficiency in review is the question now.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes