Uncertainty and individual discretion in allocating research funds
Name
1108621005-MIT.pdf
Size
3.3 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
4806bb930f582ecf5880b8763b92e938
Author(s)
Kearney, Michael J.(Michael Joseph)
Advisor(s)
Pierre Azoulay.
Date Issued
2019
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
There is a long-standing tradition in public research funding agencies of distributing funds via peer review, which aggregates evaluations of proposed research ideas from a group of external experts. Despite complaints that this process is biased against novel ideas, there is poor understanding of an alternative system that may overcome this bias: the use of individual discretion. Here, we conduct the first quantitative study of how individual discretion affects a research funding portfolio. Using internal project selection data from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), we describe how a portfolio of projects selected by individual discretion differs from a portfolio of projects selected by traditional peer review. We show that ARPA-E program directors prefer to fund proposals with greater disagreement among experts, especially if at least one reviewer thinks highly of the proposal. This preference leads ARPA-E to fund more uncertain and creative research ideas, which supports the agency's mission of pursuing novel ideas for transformational energy technology.
Description
Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 31-34).
Subjects
Sloan School of Management.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
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