Cargando…

Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success

Crowdfunding has gained traction as a mechanism to raise resources for entrepreneurial and artistic projects, yet there is little systematic evidence on the potential of crowdfunding for scientific research. We first briefly review prior research on crowdfunding and give an overview of dedicated pla...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sauermann, Henry, Franzoni, Chiara, Shafi, Kourosh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6319731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30608943
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208384
_version_ 1783385116037349376
author Sauermann, Henry
Franzoni, Chiara
Shafi, Kourosh
author_facet Sauermann, Henry
Franzoni, Chiara
Shafi, Kourosh
author_sort Sauermann, Henry
collection PubMed
description Crowdfunding has gained traction as a mechanism to raise resources for entrepreneurial and artistic projects, yet there is little systematic evidence on the potential of crowdfunding for scientific research. We first briefly review prior research on crowdfunding and give an overview of dedicated platforms for crowdfunding research. We then analyze data from over 700 campaigns on the largest dedicated platform, Experiment.com. Our descriptive analysis provides insights regarding the creators seeking funding, the projects they are seeking funding for, and the campaigns themselves. We then examine how these characteristics relate to fundraising success. The findings highlight important differences between crowdfunding and traditional funding mechanisms for research, including high use by students and other junior investigators but also relatively small project size. Students and junior investigators are more likely to succeed than senior scientists, and women have higher success rates than men. Conventional signals of quality–including scientists’ prior publications–have little relationship with funding success, suggesting that the crowd may apply different decision criteria than traditional funding agencies. Our results highlight significant opportunities for crowdfunding in the context of science while also pointing towards unique challenges. We relate our findings to research on the economics of science and on crowdfunding, and we discuss connections with other emerging mechanisms to involve the public in scientific research.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6319731
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-63197312019-01-19 Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success Sauermann, Henry Franzoni, Chiara Shafi, Kourosh PLoS One Research Article Crowdfunding has gained traction as a mechanism to raise resources for entrepreneurial and artistic projects, yet there is little systematic evidence on the potential of crowdfunding for scientific research. We first briefly review prior research on crowdfunding and give an overview of dedicated platforms for crowdfunding research. We then analyze data from over 700 campaigns on the largest dedicated platform, Experiment.com. Our descriptive analysis provides insights regarding the creators seeking funding, the projects they are seeking funding for, and the campaigns themselves. We then examine how these characteristics relate to fundraising success. The findings highlight important differences between crowdfunding and traditional funding mechanisms for research, including high use by students and other junior investigators but also relatively small project size. Students and junior investigators are more likely to succeed than senior scientists, and women have higher success rates than men. Conventional signals of quality–including scientists’ prior publications–have little relationship with funding success, suggesting that the crowd may apply different decision criteria than traditional funding agencies. Our results highlight significant opportunities for crowdfunding in the context of science while also pointing towards unique challenges. We relate our findings to research on the economics of science and on crowdfunding, and we discuss connections with other emerging mechanisms to involve the public in scientific research. Public Library of Science 2019-01-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6319731/ /pubmed/30608943 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208384 Text en © 2019 Sauermann et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Sauermann, Henry
Franzoni, Chiara
Shafi, Kourosh
Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
title Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
title_full Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
title_fullStr Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
title_full_unstemmed Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
title_short Crowdfunding scientific research: Descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
title_sort crowdfunding scientific research: descriptive insights and correlates of funding success
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6319731/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30608943
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208384
work_keys_str_mv AT sauermannhenry crowdfundingscientificresearchdescriptiveinsightsandcorrelatesoffundingsuccess
AT franzonichiara crowdfundingscientificresearchdescriptiveinsightsandcorrelatesoffundingsuccess
AT shafikourosh crowdfundingscientificresearchdescriptiveinsightsandcorrelatesoffundingsuccess